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EU steps up support for education and skills

Eugene Eteris, BC, Copenhagen, 18.02.2013.Print version
European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, A. Vassiliou in the Education Council (15 February 2013) discussing “Education and Skills for Jobs, Stability and Growth” stressed the EU efforts to support education and skills. Presently, it is up to the national education authorities to ensure that national plans for the modernisation of education benefit from adequate funding.

The Commissioner’s message was that the EU and the member states have to work harder to improve people's skills and competences so that they have a better chance to find a good job. That was the policy message presented in the Commission’s Communication on “Rethinking Education”. 

 

Source: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-106_en.htm?locale=en


The EU support for the member states

There are several means in the EU’s efforts to support the member states’ policies:

 

A first element in these efforts is the EU Strategy for Growth and Jobs, i.e. EU-2020 Strategy. In particular, the Country-specific Recommendations are the main source to support the states in the reform efforts. In addition, these recommendations serve as a vehicle for the Council to ensure that the education and training policy can also be given the attention they merit in the deliberations of the Heads of State and Government in the European Council.

 

Secondly, 2013 is a decisive year for the member states to plan spending in the next generation of Structural Funds. In the current programming period member states are spending € 35 billion from the Structural Funds on education, training and lifelong learning. As is known, the main share of the funding comes from the European Social Fund (€ 28 billion), but more than € 7 billion will be spent on education infrastructure through the European Regional Development Fund. These amounts can make a difference, if they are used effectively and for the right purposes, argued the Commissioner.

 

The legislative framework for the period 2014 – 2020 gives a prominent role to investment in education and training. It is now up to the states’ Ministers of Education, to ensure that national plans for the modernisation of education benefit from adequate funding.

 

Thirdly, the EU can help to organise mutual learning and provide the data, facts and figures that are needed to base national policies on a solid analysis.


Examples of cooperation

The Commissioner highlighted three examples of the EU’s strengthened cooperation with the OECD that are closely linked to the issues of better skills.


The first one is PIAAC (the 'Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competences') which for the very first time provides a set of credible empirical evidence about the skills of adults in the EU member states; how effectively these skills are deployed and how they relate to economic and social outcomes. In autumn 2013, jointly with the OECD, the findings of PIAAC will be presented in Brussels.

 

Just as PISA did for secondary education, PIACC will bring a new wealth of information on the real situation on skills among adults. This will give national education authorities new information on which to plan skills policies and it will give the Council plenty of material for its work under EU-2020 strategy and the 2014 European Semester.

 

Second example is about a new web-based tool: 'education and skills on-line'. This joint OECD and Commission tool will help citizens, enterprises and institutions to assess, for themselves, their skills, both in terms of their strengths and their weaknesses. This website intends to identify the areas, which would benefit from up-skilling and thus help them to improve their chances on the labour market.

 

The third example concerns entrepreneurial skills, which are crucial, in particular in the case of young people. The European Commission, in collaboration with OECD, is developing a Guiding Framework for Entrepreneurial Universities and a self-assessment tool for Universities. The Commission intends to expand this approach and tailor it to make it work at the levels of schools and Vocational Education and Training.

 

Finally, making better use of modern technologies in education and training is another EU’s key priority for two reasons:

 

- because the member states need to educate young and not-so-young people to live and thrive in an ICT dominated world; and

- because the EU needs to harness the real power of ICTs as new means to meet traditional educational goals such as raising the quality of education and opening up access for all.

 

Later in 2013, the Education Commissioner will follow up on the brief treatment of these issues in Rethinking Education, by presenting, jointly with Vice-President Neelie Kroes, a new initiative and a range of ideas on Opening up Education through ICTs.


U-Multirank

The Commissioner underlined the importance of the U-Multirank project, the multi-dimensional and global ranking initiative supported at EU level. This is a EU plan to complement the existing university rankings, which are almost exclusively based on universities' research functions, with a tool which will provide a better, more rounded picture of the performance of European universities and colleges.

 

U-Multirank has the potential to increase transparency, and to highlight excellence in all the different missions of European universities, in teaching and learning, in knowledge transfer and regional development and in internationalisation, as well as in research. This will increase the visibility and attractiveness of all our universities, not just the big league universities; it will also be based on a strong input from the different national actors.

 

The Commission’s challenge presently is to ensure the participation of at least 500 institutions in the first round in view of the first publication early 2014 and the next six months are going to be crucial in this respect to progress fast.

 

The member states have to look at this EU initiative in more details and promote it towards national higher education policies.

 

As soon as the EU needs to secure as early as possible the participation of universities in this initiative, the Commission will therefore send to all states in the near future a letter explaining the rationale and the objectives of this initiative.

Reference: European Commission, Memo/13/106, Brussels, 15 February 2013.


The future of the EU’s job market and employment

Another EU Commissioner at the lecture at Trinity College, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (Dublin, 15 February 2013) László Andor, responsible for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, was talking about the future on the EU job market and improvements in employment prospects.


Youth, jobs and Europe

The title of the Commissioner’s topic was “Youth, jobs and Europe”, the issue that lies at the heart of most young people’s concerns. The Commissioner was talking about the EU actions towards making young people get jobs and discussing ways in which growth, employment and the social situation can be better taken into account as the EU reinforces coordination of budgetary and structural policies.

 

He touched upon the issue of dealing with the so-called differentiated or “asymmetric” shocks among the member states within the currency union. The main question is how to prevent that shocks in some parts of the Economic and Monetary Union and how to unleash the present financial, economic and social crisis.


Youth unemployment issues

The severity of the current crisis is well-known: the latest figures (December 2012) show that there are 5,7 million unemployed young people under 25 across the EU, with over 3,6 million in the euro area.

 

That amounts to a youth unemployment rate of 23,4% for the EU and 24% for the euro area.

 

For example, in Ireland the total unemployment rate for the whole population in December was 14,7%.


These are the percentages of people who don't have a job, are looking for one and cannot find it.

 

Most people in this and older generations understand that the future of European economy and social benefits depend on young people’s skills, ideas and abilities, and on whether they get an opportunity to apply and develop them in the labour market. Investing in young people is therefore a moral imperative, a social necessity and simple economic sense, the Commissioner argued.


EU action to support young people

The EU has paid a lot of attention to young people's unemployment and drop-out from the labour market. The EU-2020 Strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, which was adopted in 2010, includes among its five headline targets three that concern improving educational performance, boosting employment and reducing poverty and social exclusion. Progressing on all these targets depends on what opportunities could be created for young people and investments to be made.

 

In December 2011 the Commission adopted a Youth Opportunities Initiative calling for a stronger partnership between governments, businesses, trade unions, EU institutions and other players to tackle the situation. It set up Action Teams of Commission and national officials, which met in 2012 in the eight worst-affected countries to look how EU funding could be used faster and better to help young people get jobs.

 

As a first result, funds worth €16 billion from the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund have been reallocated so they would benefit at least 628,000 additional young people compared to the original funding plan.

 

And in December 2012, the Commission proposed a Youth Employment Package involving further practical initiatives. It proposes new instruments to tackle the short-term and structural employment problems facing young people.

 

The focus is on supporting the transition from education to work. This means reducing the high numbers of those neither in employment nor in education or training (the so-called NEETs), and equipping all young people with the skills and experience they need to get a job.

 

The Youth Employment Package has four main elements: 

 

= First, a Council recommendation for a Youth Guarantee, which means that each Member States should establish a scheme to ensure that all young people up to 25 years of age receive – within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving the formal education system:


  • a quality offer of a job,
  • the possibility of continuing their education,
  • an apprenticeship, or
  • a traineeship.

 

Such Youth Guarantees will need to be based on close partnerships between public institutions and other players, including local and regional authorities, schools, businesses and trade unions. Turning the Youth Guarantee into reality requires early intervention and activation, and making full use of EU funding.

 

Youth Guarantees will cost something in the short term, but this is lower than the cost of doing nothing (the costs of a young person neither in employment, nor in education or training are much higher). There is of course the cost of any unemployment benefit paid, but there is a much greater cost in terms of the economic value the person could have created if he or she was at work, and which would have been seen in earnings, taxes and company profits.


These economic costs of young people's disengagement from the labour market are estimated to amount to 1,2% of EU GDP, i.e. an annual loss to the EU member states is of €153 billion! These are findings of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, or Eurofound.

 

The second point of the Youth Employment Package is a European Quality Framework for Traineeships, which are an excellent way of passing smoothly from education to the world of work.

But all too often, employers use them to replace permanent jobs. A Quality Framework for Traineeships would encourage companies to offer a real chance to acquire experience and learn on the job under fair working conditions. The Commission will present a legislative proposal on this by the end of 2013.

 

The third point is a European Alliance for Apprenticeships to improve the quality of apprenticeships and the number on offer. There is evidence that dual vocational training systems — where young people work and study in parallel — facilitate the transition from school to work. Joblessness among young people is significantly lower in the member states with extended work-based learning programmes. Such systems in Austria, Germany or Switzerland help both the economy and the labour market to function well. Now it’s time to share the know-how with other states.

The European Alliance will hopefully help disseminate good practice in this area. It will promote national partnerships to develop successful apprenticeship schemes, common curricula for various occupations and systems for recognising apprenticeships followed in another country.

 

The fourth point in the Youth Employment Package aims to improve labour mobility for young people across Europe by opening up access to more job opportunities. This will involve transforming EURES, the network of European Employment Services, into a more flexible, demand-driven recruitment instrument. The goal is that people and companies get greater assistance with placing jobseekers into vacant jobs beyond national borders.

 

The EU has started to run targeted mobility schemes for young people in the form of small-scale, tailor-made recruitment campaigns that will address particular vacancies in certain occupations, sectors or Member States; the pilot project is known as Your first EURES Job. Apprenticeships and traineeships in another country that are linked to a job will also be facilitated by EURES.

 

The European Council meeting in the start of February 2013 came out strongly in favour of the Commission’s Youth Employment Package. The Heads of State or Government expect the Council to adopt the recommendation on a Youth Guarantee and the Irish Presidency will seek a decision already at the meeting of Employment and Social Affairs Ministers on 28 February 2013.

 

The Heads of State or Government also called on the Commission to finalise the Quality Framework for Traineeships, to establish the Alliance for Apprenticeships, and to make proposals for the new EURES regulation.

 

Very importantly, the leaders also agreed on a new Youth Employment Initiative to support the measures set out in the Youth Employment Package, and in particular the Youth Guarantee.

This initiative will involve €6 billion for the 2014 to 2020 period and will be open to all regions with a youth unemployment rate over 25%. About €3 billion of this will be additional support on top of what would already be financed by the European Social Fund.

 

It is clear that investment in Youth Guarantee schemes should make a priority in fixing national budgets in a smart and growth-friendly way. The Youth Guarantee would clearly generate a positive economic return. Helping all young people to get a labour market experience is as important as good education, and the EU and member states need to make that investment, concluded Commissioner László Andor. 

 

Reference: SPEECH/13/127, Dublin, 15 February 2013;     

http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-127_en.htm?locale=en







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