Brussels, 08/07/2009 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 8 July, the European Commission presented a Green Paper on the mobility of young people in training or education. “Promoting the learning mobility of young people” seeks to open a debate on the best ways to increase opportunities for young Europeans to develop their knowledge and skills by going abroad and initiates a public consultation exercise to gather stakeholders' views. “Learning mobility is good for individuals, for schools, universities and training institutions and for society at large. It helps build skills, language knowledge and intercultural competences, and enhances individuals' and organisations' ability to innovate and compete at the international level. This is important for the strength and sustainability of the EU's economic recovery,” said Education and Training Commissioner Ján Figel'. The aim of the Green Paper is to define ways to bring together pubic bodies, companies civil society organisations and individuals to work for learning mobility. The public consultation procedure will remain open until 15 December 2009.
The 20th anniversary of the Erasmus student mobility programme in 2007 triggered much debate on the benefits of mobility in higher education and the need to expand mobility to other areas. General agreement that many more young people should have opportunities for mobility emerged from this process and, in November 2008, the Council asked the Commission to draft proposals that would allow all young people to spend some time abroad. The Leuven Communiqué, adopted on 29 April 2009 by ministers with responsibility for higher education in those countries that are part of the Bologna Process, sets a target that at least 20% of those graduating from higher education should have had a study or training period abroad. More recently still, the Commission's communication on employment in June 2009 says that mobility is one of the key priorities for tackling the current economic crisis and promoting job creation. Despite the programmes, instruments and initiatives developed by the European Union to increase mobility - the Erasmus Scheme, Europass and the European Community Course Credit Transfer System (ECTS) - mobility remains the exception rather than the rule. In 2006, only 0.3% of young people between the ages of 16 and 29 had travelled to another country under one of the European programmes. “Mobility must not be limited to just one sector. It should affect other sectors. … We want to spread the benefits of the Erasmus Scheme to other sectors”, such as research, vocational training and apprenticeships, secondary education, youth exchanges and voluntary work, cultural life, young entrepreneurs and civil society, said Commissioner Figel'. Mobility can also create job opportunities for young unemployed people. He said that, if member states placed greater value on and gave greater recognition to knowledge and qualifications gained, then young people would be more likely to engage in a training course abroad.
The Green Paper wants to open up the debate to all stakeholders in order to prepare the ground for making these mobility objectives a reality. In particular, the Paper: 1) seeks to promote “organised learning mobility”: mobility should be linked to specific learning outcomes and lead to the attainment of qualifications, credits and/or professional experience, whether in formal or non-formal learning. It may relate to voluntary work or other forms of learning mobility supported within the member states, including private sector programmes; 2) deals firstly with mobility between the countries taking part in EU programmes while seeking to develop exchanges with third countries; 3) promotes not only “like-to-like” mobility across borders, but within sectors (schools, universities, companies, etc) and also cross-sector movement (from the world of education to the world of business, and vice versa); 4) focuses on physical mobility while recognising, too, the value of “virtual mobility” (the use of ICT for twinning and exchange between young people in learning environments) as supported through Comenius eTwinning or through social networking; 5) concentrates on the mobility of young people, between 16 and 35, although no precise age limits are set on lifelong learning. This is not to say that learning mobility is not important for all age groups, the Commission points out.
As part of the public consultation, the Green Paper asks a number of questions and seeks feedback on issues such as: 1) How can we convince more young people to go abroad to acquire new knowledge, skills and experience? 2) What obstacles to mobility do we have to overcome? 3) How can all stakeholders - the Commission, member states, regions, education and training institutions, NGOs - join forces in a new partnership for learning mobility? The questionnaire will be available from 15 July at: http: //ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/consult/index_en.html (I.L./transl.rt)