Education is first and foremost the concern of the Member States. At European level, however, education ministers can coordinate their national policies. The stated aim of European education policy is to create more jobs and promote growth through strengthening basic and advanced education and training, and to help Member States shape national policy through the exchange of experience at European level.

Priority areas are the mobility of students and teachers, learning languages, cooperation between educational establishments, and initial and continuing vocational training.

The overall objective is to make the various education systems of the EU Member States more transparent. Through the Bologna Process, the European Union intends, together with other European states, to create a common European space for higher education by 2010.

Removing barriers hindering access to courses of study and developing a system for comparing qualifications should lead to greater freedom of movement between higher education institutions in Europe. The Bruges-Copenhagen Process supports the idea of transparent and comparable qualifications in vocational education and training.

The European Union has already set aside funding for educational exchange between Member States. 2007 sees the start of the programme "Lifelong Learning", which promotes the mobility of students, trainees and young employees, as well as pilot projects in the area of education.

Focal points of the German EU Presidency in the field of education

"Bildung verbindet" - EU – "Education unites"

Education is the key to individual life chances – to people's cultural, economic and social participation. This explains the central role of education policy in the EU's Lisbon Strategy. The sum of the individual life chances of European citizens is crucial for the competitiveness of European industry, for social cohesion and, last but not least, for the integration of the member states on the basis of common values and a common understanding of democracy and the rule of law. With this awareness and these education policy goals in mind, we will seek to make further progress in the central fields of action of European education cooperation:

• The German Council Presidency attaches great importance to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). The recommendation by the Council and the European Parliament regarding a European Qualifications Framework aims to promote more than just transparency and cross-border mobility. It also provides a translation tool which assists the classification and comparison of learning outcomes at European, national and sectoral level. In particular, this enables a European comparison and an appropriate assessment of the skills acquired in the dual system of vocational education and training. It is our aim during the German Council Presidency to intensify the work on the European Qualifications Framework on the basis of the Commission proposal and in close cooperation with the European Parliament and, if possible, to conclude these activities.
• The SOCRATES and LEONARDO education programmes are excellent examples of a successful EU policy for the people. The launch of the Lifelong Learning Programme during the German EU Presidency will provide a basis for continuing and extending this success story. In this connection, the German Council Presidency will organize a big European launch conference in Berlin on 6 and 7 May 2007 in cooperation with the European Commission. The programme, with its budget of approximately 7 billion euro, will run from 2007 to 2013 and will support the cross-border mobility of teachers and learners at all levels of education as well as cooperation between education institutions from various European countries.
• The Bologna Process, which already extends beyond the circle of EU member states and which has now been joined by a total of 45 European countries, has already led to the forward-looking structural reform of higher education institutions in Europe. The next step in this process will be to take critical stock of the recognition of degrees, study structures and quality assurance at the Ministerial Conference in London on 16 to 18 May 2007. It will be incumbent on the Ministerial Conference, which will be co-chaired by Great Britain and Germany, to agree on this basis on the next steps to be taken within the framework of the Bologna Process to realize the European Higher Education Area by 2010.
• The European member countries of the Copenhagen Process are increasingly intensifying their cooperation in the area of vocational training by agreeing on specific measures to improve the transparency, creditability and recognition of qualifications and degrees. The German Council Presidency will carry on from where the Finnish EU Presidency left off. The Ministerial Conference in Helsinki in December 2006 will agree the next political steps, and the European Conference "Realizing the European Learning Area" (Munich, 4 to 5 June 2007) will discuss concrete proposals for implementing these steps. The topics will be: The European Qualifications Framework, European Credits for Vocational Education and Training, opportunities for transfer between vocational training and higher education, the qualification of teachers, as well as the promotion of mobility.

We will discuss current education policy priorities from the Education Ministers’ "Education and Training 2010" work programme at the Informal Meeting of Education Ministers in Heidelberg (1 to 2 March 2007) and encourage progress in this area. One of the objectives is to enable the Ministers to discuss "Europe: its values, its future" against the background of the importance of common values for the process of European integration and to thus promote the debate on education’s contribution to the development of common values in Europe.

The trend towards “evidence-based policies” is becoming an increasingly important feature of national and European developments. Well-founded, empirical education research is necessary for the effective realization of central aims in the area of education. This also applies to the central fields of action in EU education cooperation. The work programme of the EU Education Ministers also attaches considerable significance to control instruments based on empirical research. The conference entitled “Knowledge for Action. Research Strategies for an Evidence-Based Education Policy”, which will be held in Frankfurt from 28 to 30 March 2007, is intended as a European platform for an exchange of information and experience in this area.