Brussels, 26/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The European Students' Forum (AEGEE) presented to the European Parliament on 26 May its proposals for a new generation of programmes for youth training and education in the EU after 2006. The conference was chaired by Dan Luca, of Euroactiv. The AEGEE initiative consists in introducing "blended learning", a combination between summer courses and e-learning. Programmes should above all be improved with emphasis placed on exchanges between EU countries and its new neighbours.
One of the officials of the Directorate General for Culture and Education at the European Commission responsible for the Socrates, Erasmus and Jean Monnet programmes immediately said that "given the slow and unwieldy Commission financial rules and procedures, it was time to envisage new education and training programmes for after 2006. The Commission firmly supports European student mobility and language learning" and, with this in mind, considers it would be necessary to increase the budget allocated, to allow "our network to be extended". The Commission official recalls that the Commission has proposed adoption of an "umbrella programme with four pillars - Socrates, Erasmus, Leonardo Da Vinci and Youth - which would define common actions and decentralise budgets and, above all, would set in place experimental projects in order to ensure the programmes undertaken are effective". The Jean Monnet programme has the specific feature that it develops knowledge at world level and the integration of the various European cultures throughout universities. "With our post-enlargement new neighbours, the EU has a great challenge to raise, and the proposals of the AEGEE fall into this category", the Commission official said.