Brussels, 15/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Education, Youth and Culture Council began on Monday morning with the Education chapter, under the chairmanship of Dutch Minister Maria Van der Hoeven.
The strong point of the session was a public debate on the Education and Training aspects of the Lisbon Strategy within the framework of the Kok Report on mid-term review of the strategy. Will Hutton, the rapporteur of the High Level Group chaired by Wim Kok, presented the guidelines set out in the Kok report in these sectors to the ministers. In his view, Europe must intensify its effort on educational programmes and employment policies in order to face up to the emergence of countries like China and India, that are becoming the "workshops of the world", and the United States, that continue to consolidate their knowledge sector. Europe must endeavour to strengthen its academic pole, ensure a link between the research industry and enterprise, and channel implementation means with a view to aiming at "excellence", but also with a view to increasing the rate of employment and combating population ageing.
Commissioner Viviane Reding said how pleased she was at the support given in the Kok report to the education and training sectors, but regretted that more emphasis is not placed on research and development, which are the cornerstones of the knowledge society. She welcomed, on the other hand, the request made of Member States to provide from 2005 on (instead of 2006 as the Commission had wanted) national statistics that will allow the European Union to draw up a report on life long learning.
Education Ministers in turn generally approved the conclusions of the Kok report. Consensus nonetheless took shape around Commissioner Reding to deplore the lack of a clear reference to the "education" and "employment" aspects. Ministers, moreover, placed emphasis on the obligation to coordinate national policies and to establish dialogue and an exchange of good practice between Member States. They also drew attention to the need to invest in human capital and continuous training and lifelong learning (population ageing and the active population, especially, make such programmes urgent). The need to set up university centres of excellence at European level, but also to direct teaching programmes toward the real needs of industry were unanimously recognised. Some Member States, like Sweden or Spain, also stressed the need to implement educational recovery policies to allow all students to keep afloat. By way of conclusion, all ministers recognised it was urgent to henceforth implement a coherent and effective policy for education and life-long training (reports are fine but it is also urgent to implement policies, several ministers said).
"Not enough has been done. Everyone must get down to the task at national level, but also when it concerns European cooperation", President Van der Hoeven said by way of conclusion.
During the morning, ministers also held a debate on the lifelong training programme. They adopted a report on the role of education with regards citizenship ("Education and Citizenship: the broader role of education and its cultural aspects") as well as conclusions on the priorities to be followed for intensified European cooperation in vocational training and education.