Human development - Education and Training

EC Higher Education Programmes
Coordination and partnerships with European Union Member States

EDUCATION

is about giving all people the knowledge and skills they need to be active citizens, participate successfully in the economy and fulfil themselves as individuals;
is critical to long-term improvements in productivity, the reduction of inter-generational cycles of poverty;
contributes to better health, higher incomes, and increased participation in community life.

Policy framework & Priorities

The European Community (EC) continues to prioritize the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of universal primary education and gender equality in education in its policies as emphasized in European Consensus on Development of 2005.

The Communication on 'Education and Training in the context of poverty reduction in Developing Countries' sets out the Commission's education policy and priorities.

Other important policy documents relating to education are: The EU Agenda for Action on the MDGs , which outlines priority areas for action, and the Africa – EU Strategic Partnership on the Millennium Development Goals which sets out priority actions to accelerate the achievement of the Education MDGs in Africa.

Strategy

The Commission strategy emphasises:

political and strategic dialogue with partner countries and integration of education policies into national development and poverty reduction strategies;
a holistic and balanced approach to the whole sector, including vocational skills development;
budgetary support, either at national budget or sector level in line with the Accra Agenda for Action;
participation by all education actors and civil society in the widest sense, including the private sector;
support for institutional development and capacity-building;
monitoring of activities via indicators.

Targets

The MDGs set two ambitious targets in the field of education:

to give all boys and girls a full primary education by 2015;
to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education by 2005, and for all levels of education by 2015.

Progress

Encouraging progress has been made towards universal primary education with the global attainment of net enrolment at 86%.
The number of out-of school children is still high at 75 million and 55% (41 million) of them are girls. Global level monitoring data are available in the UNESCO Education for All Global Monitoring Report.

There are now opportunities for collaboration between higher education institutions under the following education programmes:

the Erasmus Mundus Programme,
Edulink
and the Nyerere Programme.

Top