Commission presents EU strategy for 2020
The European Commission has just presented the Europe 2020 Strategy to help Europe emerge from the crisis and prepare its economy for the next decade. Education and training are to play a key role for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
The Europe 2020 Strategy, follow-up to the former Lisbon-Strategy, will focus on a trio of priorities which are linked and will reinforce each other:- Smart growth: developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.
- Sustainable growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy.
- Inclusive growth: fostering a high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion.
Education, training and lifelong learning play a key role to achieve these strategic priorities, in particular when it comes to smart and inclusive growth. One of the five targets the EU is setting itself for 2020 addresses important education issues: reducing the number of school drop-outs to less than 10 % and increasing the share of young people with a tertiary degree or diploma to 40%.
In order to meet the set priorities and targets, the Commission proposes a Europe 2020 agenda consisting of a series of flagship initiatives. Implementing these initiatives is a shared priority, and action will be required at all levels: EU-level organisations, Member States, local and regional authorities, and civil society.
Two of these flagship initiatives will be particularly linked to education and training:
Youth on the move: the aim is to enhance the quality and international attractiveness of Europe's higher education system by promoting mobility of students and trainees. As a concrete action, the EU's mobility programmes should be enhanced and linked to national programmes, the modernisation agenda of higher education pursued and professional experience should be properly recognised.
An agenda for new skills and jobs has the objective of creating the right conditions to modernise labour markets and to allow people to acquire new skills in order to raise employment levels and to ensure the sustainability of our social models, while baby-boomers retire. The concrete actions to be taken include the implementation of the strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training, the acquisition and recognition of learning throughout general, vocational, higher and adult learning, and the implementation of the European Qualifications Framework.
To know more
- European Commission: Europe 2020
- European Commission: European strategy and co-operation in education and training
