Brussels, 18/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - While noting positive trends in certain areas, the overall progress of Europe's education and training systems towards the goals set in the Lisbon strategy is insufficient. This is the main finding of the 2006 edition of the European Commission's annual report on progress towards the Lisbon objectives in the field of education and training. The staff working paper analyses progress achieved since 2000 and focuses on five education “benchmarks” for the Lisbon strategy. Odile Quintin, Director General at the European Commission's Directorate General Education and Culture said that only one of the criteria had been fully fulfilled: reducing failures in maths, science and technology. Member States successfully increased the number of graduates in these three disciplines, with Ireland, the United Kingdom and France being the highest performers in this area. In other areas progress was observed but it remains insufficient. This is the case with the benchmark for reducing the number of early school leavers to a maximum of 10%. The best performing EU countries as regards the share of early school leavers are: Poland (5.5%), Slovakia (5.8%) and the Czech Republic (6.4%) thanks to a very inspired mobilisation by the authorities, explained Ms Quintin. Only moderate increases in participation in lifelong learning were registered (12.5% participation rates). 4 million adults would need to participate in lifelong learning within any four week period in 2010 if the EU benchmark of 12.5% participation rate is to be achieved. The best-performing EU countries in this regard are: Sweden (34.7%), United Kingdom (29.1%) and Denmark (27.6%). The Commission also deplores the absence of progress with the EU benchmark of an 85% upper-secondary school completion rate by 2010. An additional 2 million young people (aged 20-24 years) would need to complete upper-secondary education. The best-performing EU countries are: Slovakia (91.5%), Slovenia (90.6%) and the Czech Republic (90.3%). Little progress has been achieved in reading. About one in every five 15-year-old pupils in the EU is presently a poor reader. Reaching the European benchmark for 2010 would imply that 200 000 pupils would have to improve their standard of reading. The EU has still a long way to go to reach the objective set by the Council of reducing this percentage by 20% (to reach 15.5%) by 2010. The best-performing EU countries are: Finland (5.7%), Ireland (11%) and the Netherlands (11.5%).
The EU would need to more than double the amount it invests per tertiary-level student (i.e. an increase of around 10 000 euros per year) to match the spending level in the USA. Public investment in education and training as a percentage of GDP has grown slightly since the adoption of the Lisbon strategy, and is comparable with levels in the USA. However, rates of private investment in educational institutions are modest in most Member States compared with the leading countries in the world (incl. the USA), especially in higher education. Two challenges remain: during the coming 10 years, the EU needs to attract at least 1 million newly qualified teachers in order to replace those who will leave the profession due to retirement; speed up foreign language learning so that students learn at least two languages as well as their mother tongue as early as possible, as requested by the Barcelona 2002 European Council. At present, an average of only 1.3 and 1.6 foreign languages. Full report available at (http: //ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/objectives_en.html#measuring).