The national plans under the EU’s Recovery and Resilience Facility have a strong focus on education. A new report highlights the areas of investment.
The EU set up the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) under the NextGenerationEU initiative to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the societies and economies of Europe. The European Commission (EC) borrowed a total amount of €723.8 billion (in current prices) on the capital markets to be made available as loans and grants to boost reforms and investments in Member States (see SwissCore article). For this purpose, each Member State (MS) prepared a national recovery and resilience plan detailing the sectors and projects for investments. On average 12% of all funds in the plans are allocated to education and training (see dataset by Bruegel). Given these very significant investments, the European Schoolnet published a report providing an overview and analysis of the common reforms supported by the RRF plans of twelve selected countries. All plans include measures either for the entire education system or for a specific sector, for training and reform but also hardware and construction. The report broadly divides all RRF education projects into six categories: i. Professional development reform, ii. curriculum reform, iii. reform of initial teacher education, iv. reform of school organisation, v. innovation and research in education, vi. digital equipment and infrastructure improvement.
Reforms of the professional development of teachers are part of most national recovery and resilience plans and are often linked to the implementation of curriculum reform or the introduction of new digital tools. A survey by the European Schoolnet showed that the main goals of the professional development projects were to increase the use of ICT in teaching and learning, to strengthen digital competences, and to improve with the inclusion disadvantaged students. In this regard, most Member States (MS) draw on the European digital competence framework (DigCompEdu) and make use of the SELFIE and SELFIE for Teachers tools. The reform of initial teacher education, however, is not part of the recovery and resilience plans.
The national plans further include curriculum reforms, which sometimes are continuations of ongoing reforms. In Belgium (Flanders), the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovakia, broad curriculum reforms on multiple levels of education are planned (mostly at primary and secondary schools). Often the reforms have a strong focus on digitalisation, digital skills and digital literacy (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary). New curricula often require new teaching and learning resources. In some MS, the development of new textbooks or of new interactive learning systems, such as new learning software, is planned. Spain, for example, aims for the creation of educational resources in artificial intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. Belgium (Flanders) is developing online learning resources, platforms and digital assessment tools for all schools.
Another significant element of the RRF national plans is the reform of school organisations. This includes, for example, the creation of new centres for digital education (Lithuania), the introduction of whole-day schooling linked to the upgrading and construction of school infrastructure (Croatia), the adoption of a flexible semester organisation (Portugal) or the better inclusion and support of parents (France, Portugal). Many reforms of the school organisation aim to foster equal opportunities and to reduce inequalities, such as the digital divide.
To address this digital divide, many MS will use the RRF investments to procure digital equipment and upgrade digital infrastructure at schools. On the one hand, education authorities across the EU will provide hundreds of thousands of portable devices to students, and on the other, install or update digital systems in schools and classrooms (for example, visualisation tools or programming and robotics kits). In some contexts, the construction of high-capacity broadband networks is planned, which also includes the improved connectivity of schools (Estonia, Finland).
Lastly, investments in research and innovation for education are foreseen. This includes research on the inclusion of disadvantaged students (Slovakia), on digital education and digital learning resources (France, Portugal), and other fields of study. The European Schoolnet called for better coordination between the different national plans of the RRF to strengthen the impact of the RRF on education systems. In this regard, the EC has announced the creation of a ‘Learning Lab on Investments in Education’ to be set up in autumn 2022 with the mission to analyse and inform on EU investments in education (see SwissCore article). Further, the EC will also publish guidelines on artificial intelligence and data in education and training, and guidelines for teachers and educations on tackling disinformation and promotion digital literacy in September 2022.