Brussels, 21/11/2008 (Agence Europe) - The French Presidency wanted to put on the education agenda points for consideration “that would bring progress towards a Europe of training and knowledge” in general terms, said French Minister Xavier Darcos on Friday 21 November at the last meeting of the Education Council. “We have to have a longer-term vision,” he stated. Education ministers, then, discussed the issues that are the major challenges for European countries: how to provide young people with basic knowledge, setting up life-long guidance systems which can react to rapid changes in society, facilitating mobility among young students and teachers, and promoting multilingualism. The Council adopted, inter alia, conclusions for European cooperation on schools entitled “Preparing Young People for the XXI Century”. “I am genuinely delighted that, for the first time, the Council conclusions and a Commission communication deal with education as a whole. It's a good sign,” said Education Commissioner Jan Figel, alluding to the Commission communication of 3 July (“Improving competences for the 21st century”). Creativity and innovation had to be shown in terms of cooperation, he said, because if we looked at reading indicators, the results were not encouraging. The conclusions provided priorities set by member states for improved cooperation on schools: 1) ensuring and improving the acquisition of key competences, including mastery of the mother tongue and mathematics; 2) increasing the role of education in promoting societies open to all and reinforcing social cohesion by guaranteeing high quality education for all pupils; 3) conferring greater status on the profession of teacher and improving initial training and the training of teachers and heads of schools.
In their speeches, ministers highlighted the need for quality primary education, better adapted to pupils' social and family situations, given, for example, that there were ever more immigrant children of diverse nationalities. Several argued that schools should have more autonomy. High quality training for teachers was also spoken of as a key objective to be pursued, as was extending cooperation between schools in sharing best practice. More particularly, Spain spoke of the importance of including parents in their children's school life. Sweden said that gender inequality was a problem, with more boys than girls leaving school early. (I.L./transl.rt)