EU Ministers of Education gathered in Brussels and agreed on increasing mobility targets for students and VET learners.
During the last Education, Youth, Culture and Sport Council (EYCS Council) on 13-14 May 2024, Ministers of Education, Youth, Culture, Communication, Sport from the EU Member States met in Brussels to prepare recommendations, work on policy resolutions, and define support strategies for EU education systems. Together, the Ministers propose common strategies and measures on supporting youth, education as well as promoting social inclusion and preserve European cultural heritage.
The main outcome of this meeting was the adoption of the Council recommendation entitled ‘Europe on the move’. This decision builds on the European Commission proposal to set increased mobility targets to be achieved by 2030 (see SwissCore article). The new targets are lower than the Commission’s initial goal, but they remain ambitious: i) in higher education, learning mobility for students should be at least 23%, ii) in vocational education and training (VET), learning mobility should be at least 12%. When it comes to inclusion objectives, the EYCS Council kept the same target as proposed by the Commission: at least 20% of all mobility participants should be people with fewer opportunities by 2027. These targets are accompanied by measures that should streamline and encourage learners to move abroad. They recommend to the Member States to provide systemic learning mobility opportunities with a reduction of the individual and societal barriers. They encourage the Member States to strengthen language learning at all levels of educations and to support the access to language classes for everyone. In order to develop the learners skills, the Council advises to support the engagement in learning mobilities activities such as better valorising the work of the educators and staff who prepare the learning mobility projects, supporting the development of flexible learning mobility formats, such as including blended inclusive programmes and short-term mobility, in order to diversify the pool of participants, and fostering the cooperation between all mobility actors to promote and support outgoing inclusive learning mobility.
In January 2023, the Swiss National Mobility Agency Movetia published a report on the mobility rates and internationalisation index of the Swiss higher education institutions (HEI) before the pandemic. On average, 15,7% of graduate higher education students had the opportunity to experience a mobility period which is lower than the European Higher Education Area mobility target of 20% of students that should have done a mobility period by 2020 but it is similar to the EU average mobility rate.
On the youth sector, the EYCS Council approved the conclusions on the legacy of the European Year of Youth that happened in 2022 (see Swisscore article). They ask the Commission and the Member States to work with youth stakeholders to co-develop policies made for them and tailored for people with fewer opportunities, such as young people coming from rural areas or living in vulnerable situations. This last part echoes with the Council conclusions on ‘inclusive societies for young people’ and on the ‘policy agendas on children, youth and children’s rights’: the ministers want to improve mental well-being and living conditions of all young people. The Council also asked the Member States to better recognise and foster youth engagement as actor of change in society.
In 2024 and following a recommendation from the Federal Government, the Swiss Parliament agreed on increasing the length of the youth leave for young workers from one to two weeks in order to encourage volunteering work. This decision will reduce the workload on young workers as many of them take holidays to be able to volunteer. A law proposal should be written by the Federal Government in the upcoming two years.