The Education Ministers of the European Union (EU) at their first meeting in Brussels under the German Council Presidency on Friday stressed the importance of education policy in Europe for a successful Lisbon reform process. The Ministers agreed that the objectives defined in the Lisbon strategy for more competitiveness and sustainable economic growth can only be achieved if the people in Europe receive an excellent education. This will be a decisive supplement to the project of spending three percent of GDP for research and development by the year 2010. Europe must become a knowledge society in order to be internationally competitive, the Ministers stressed. Education will play a key role in this process.
"We must continue to work on preparing our citizens even better for the future," said Annette Schavan, Federal Minister of Education and Research and Acting President of the Council of Education Ministers. According to the Minister, education cooperation in Europe has gathered considerable momentum in recent years: "Cross-border initial and continuing training, joint education programmes, a considerable enhancement of European mobility funding and better transparency and recognition of qualifications are examples of this development."
At the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000, Europe's heads of state and government set themselves the ambitious goal of making the European Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economic area in the world by 2010. In order to achieve this objective, the EU Council of Education Ministers in 2002 adopted its joint work programme "General and Vocational Education" for the period up until 2010. Improving the quality of national education systems and facilitating access to education for all are central objectives of education policy.
The governments of Europe have meanwhile launched a number of concrete initiatives: A redesigned EUROPASS was adopted in 2004 to improve comparability of qualifications. Also, the governments have initiated a European Qualification Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) and the development of credit points for vocational training (ECVET) to improve transfer between the European education systems. Both projects are to be launched under this work programme.
Furthermore, the Ministers discussed perspectives of education policy beyond the year 2010. To define possible topics for a future orientation of European education policy, they discussed the expansion of early childhood education and strengthening lifelong learning. This discussion process will be continued under the subsequent EU Council Presidencies of Portugal and Slovenia.
Further information on European education policy and the German EU Council Presidency is available on the Internet under www.bmbf.de.
