At their meeting in Heidelberg, education ministers from all over Europe spoke out in favour of improving early childhood education. "The pre-school period is at least as important as schooling itself", said Annette Schavan, the German Federal Education Minister. And she added: "We will make every effort in Europe to ensure that young children's thirst for knowledge can be satisfied". Within the framework of the German EU Council Presidency, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) had invited the European education ministers to a meeting in Heidelberg. Ministers from the 27 member states of the European Union as well as EU Education Commissioner Jan Figel' and representatives of another ten European countries came to Baden-Württemberg in South-West Germany.
Further topics of the two-day meeting in Heidelberg were adult education, early childhood education and the contribution of education policy to the development of a European community of values. "Education is the key to individual life chances – to playing an active part in society and industry", said Schavan. Cultural, economic and social participation by every individual must be our goal. Early childhood education is of central importance in this respect. "The basis for a person's democratic attitude and civil society virtues is established in the early years of life", Minister Schavan said. And as this is more important than ever in today's immigration societies, she added: "We must see Europe not only as an economic community but also as a community of values". Education policy is of special importance for teaching values such as democracy, tolerance and respect for basic rights. Education must therefore also include the teaching of values.
In order to achieve these goals, the governments in Europe will increase their efforts to improve the training of teachers working in early childhood education. In this connection it is important that institutions offering early childhood education are adequately equipped with both staff and funding.
The BMBF had invited a number of guest speakers who introduced the debate on values and early childhood education: the Swiss writer Prof. Adolf Muschg, the former Romanian Foreign Minister Prof. Andrei Pleşu as well as Prof. Jürgen Kluge of the McKinsey business consulting firm and Prof. Wassilios Fthenakis of the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
Please find further information about this event on this website.
For further information about European education policy and the German EU Council Presidency please visit www.bmbf.de and www.eu2007.de.
