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EU: Education Council

Volume 708: debated on Thursday 5 March 2009

Statement

Today my right honourable friend the Under-Secretary of State for Further Education Siôn Simon made the following Written Ministerial Statement.

I represented the UK at the Education Council, on behalf of DIUS and DCSF.

Ministers adopted key messages to send to the spring European Council to be held on 20 March. These emphasise the importance of maintaining investment in training, the knowledge triangle of research, education and innovation, the establishment of partnerships between education institutes and employers, and the upgrading and development of skills in developing a knowledge-based low-carbon economy. We welcome these messages. I highlighted domestic best practice in tackling the economic crisis, including support for small businesses and increased apprenticeship places.

Over lunch and in the meeting itself, Ministers held an exchange of views on the establishment of an updated strategic framework for European co-operation in education and training post-2010. This will build on the work programme in education already in place. Ministers were enthusiastic about working together to share best practice and welcomed the four strategic objectives for the new period identified by the Commission. These focus on:

making lifelong learning and learner mobility a reality;

improving the quality of education provision and outcomes;

promoting equity and active citizenship; and

enhancing innovation and creativity, including entrepreneurship, at all levels of education and training.

However, there were reservations about the proposal to develop 10 education benchmarks to measure progress against the strategic objectives. These would build on existing benchmarks for the period up to 2010 that measure low achievers in reading, early school leavers, completion of secondary education, numbers of maths, science and technology graduates, and participation in lifelong learning.

Most member states were content with the extension of existing benchmarks but were reluctant to establish many new ones. There was some support for a benchmark on pre-school learning and some opposition to input based benchmarks on language learning and higher education investment. It was also generally felt that further work was needed to develop helpful and measurable benchmarks on mobility, employability, and innovation and creativity. Netherlands was the most negative member state on benchmarking in general. I and some other member state Ministers feel we can accept a few of the new topics proposed if there is further refinement of the measurement of the benchmarks. Further work will be required before agreement can be reached on this issue, expected at the next Education Council in May.

Under Any Other Business, the Commission noted that it had published the Communication “New Skills for New Jobs” in December 2008.