The European Commission puts forward ambitious initiatives that will make the future of education and training more inclusive, green and digital.
The European Commission (EC) reinforced its commitment on achieving the European Education Area (EEA) in a Communication published on 30 September 2020. Together with the new Digital Education Action Plan (DEAP) and the European Research Area (ERA), the EEA aims at enabling the green and digital transformation in Europe and leading the way towards recovery (see SwissCore article).
Building on past achievements and existing good practices, the EC now calls for stronger cross-border cooperation and the use of means such as Erasmus+ to make education and training across Europe more resilient and to create a global role model of high-quality, inclusive, green and digital education.The Communication further builds on synergies with other initiatives such as the European Skills Agenda (see SwissCore article), the renewed Vocational Education and Training (VET) policy, the ERA and the EU Gender Equality Strategy, and ties in with the Next Generation EU recovery instrument as well as the EU long-term budget for 2021-2027.
To set the stage for achieving an EEA by 2025, the EC proposes concrete initiatives along six dimensions, which are:
- Quality in education: Actions aim at advancing basic skills and fostering transversal skills; revision of the mobility framework under Erasmus+ addressing openness, green and digital mobility including blended learning; promotion of multilingualism and the development of a European perspective in education including strengthening of Jean Monnet Actions.
- Inclusion and gender equality: This dimension puts a special focus on Erasmus and European Solidarity Corps Programmes. Actions include ‘Pathways to School Success’; establishment of 50 Centres of Excellence for VET; development of a European approach to micro-credentials fostering flexible and lifelong learning opportunities; advancement of gender equality in education and training; promotion of gender balance in academic careers and study choice, focusing on women in decision-making positions in higher education in particular.
- Green and digital transitions: Green initiatives include the launch of an Education for Climate Coalition as well as an EC proposal of a Council Recommendation on education for environmental sustainability in 2021, which will be linked with a European Competence Framework. Physical and digital education infrastructure will become greener and ‘Researchers at Schools’ will bring science to schools. Building on synergies with the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) and Horizon Europe, the EC is pushing the digital transition forward with the new DEAP and the Digital Europe Programme fostering digital skills.
- Teachers and trainers: Competences will be enhanced through 25 Erasmus Teacher Academies by 2025. While teachers and trainers will benefit from a European guidance for national career frameworks and a policy framework to increase teachers’ mobility, a European Innovative Teaching Award will serve as a motivation tool.
- Higher education (HE): A public consultation will contribute to the development of a transformation agenda for HE by end of 2021. The agenda will have a strong focus on European University alliances (currently 41 pilots) under the European Universities Initiative (see SwissCore article). It aims at promoting new curricula and gender balance in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, the development of a European Degree and a legal statute for European Universities alliances. Further, it intends to enable automatic mutual recognition while promoting the usage of tools under Europass to issue digital credentials, including micro-credentials. Students will benefit from the implementation of the European Student Card initiative through the Erasmus+ Mobile App and the digitalisation of mobility management, as well as the implementation of the graduate tracking initiative by 2025 (see SwissCore article). While knowledge ecosystems such as European Universities can profit from synergies with Horizon Europeand EIT, education and training can contribute to Europe’s innovation capacity through specific initiatives, in synergy with the ERA.
- Geopolitical dimension: Actions should focus on a ‘Team Europe’ approach to foster cooperation among Member States. They also include the strengthening of strategic global partnerships and the expansion of the international dimension of Erasmus+.
An enabling framework maintaining the good practices of the Education and Training 2020 framework will be set up to make the EEA a reality by 2025. In addition to a steering board and the structured cooperation between EC and Member States, which will continue through working groups and meetings, a publicly accessible EEA Platform will be created. Besides fostering education and training in the European Semester and laying the groundwork for a fully-fledged governance framework, the enabling framework will further strengthen synergies with other education-related initiatives such as the ERA, the Copenhagen and Bologna Processes.
Progress towards the achievement of the EEA by 2025 will be monitored through the identification of targets and key indicators. The EC foresees an annual European Education and Training Monitor as well as an EEA Progress Report in 2022 and a review event in 2023, envisaging a full report in 2025. In addition, and coinciding with the timing of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the EC proposes five concrete EU-level targets to be reached by 2030. Together with the new DEAP, the EEA will feed into the upcoming European Education Summit taking place in December. Further steps also include the work on a roadmap for actions aimed at creating synergies between higher education and research (see SwissCore article).
The Communication on the EEA serves as follow-up to the priorities set after the Gothenburg Social Summit in 2017 for which the EC had provided a proposal envisioning an EEA by 2025. In the following course, the EC developed a number of initiatives to boost cross-border cooperation covering all levels of education.