Agenda
Education and youth figure prominently in the European Commission’s policy blueprint for recovery from the crisis and for social and economic growth over the next decade. Member States are in charge of their own education and training systems, but they co-operate within the EU framework in order to achieve common goals. Investing in education is seen as a good investment, which can contribute to overcoming the crisis in a time period, where the overall EU budget for the first time ever will decrease.
ELIA, European Commission, European Commission
Institutional Structure
Directorate-Generale for Education and CultureThe European Commission is divided into several departments and services. The department for education is called “Education and Culture”. In short form, DG EAC. Androulla Vassiliou from Cyprus is the commissioner for this department until 2014. Jan Truszczynski has been Director-General since May 2010. The DG acts through political initiatives and spending programmes, as Erasmus and Comenius, at all times supporting equal opportunities in all its activities.
European Commission, European Commission
Budget
Public expenditure on education in the EU-27 in 2009 was equivalent to 5.4 % of GDP. It has increased in the recent years from 5,06 % of GDP in 2004. It should be noted that changes in GDP (growth or decline) can mask significant increases or decreases made in terms of education spending. Most EU Member States reported that public expenditure on education accounted for between 4 % and 6 % of their GDP.
Eurostat, Eurostat
EU Education Budget Compared to Other Major Economies
In 2007 worldwide research and development (R&D) expenditures totalled an estimated $1.107 trillion. USA accounted for about 33% of this. Japan, the second-largest performer, accounted for about 13%, while China was third, at about 9%. As a bloc, the EU-27 accounted for 24% of global R&D in 2007. The EU has predicted that Brazil, Russia, India, and China will dominate future R&D growth, overwhelming Europe and Japan and eventually matching the level of investment in the US.
National Science Foundation
History
The development of the educational polices of the EC since the 1960’s has had a programme-oriented, character. The first period, 1957-1967, was a period of preparation of the common educations law. The second period began in 1969, when the EC recognised that education could have an important role in European Integration. The Maastricht treaty from 1992 defines formally education, vocational training and youth, as the culture of the new European Union.
European Commission, DRC2013
Recent history
The Lisbon Agenda was set out by the European Council in Lisbon on March 2000. It aims to make Europe "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion" by 2010. The re-launched strategy focused among other thing on education and to invest more in research and innovation.
Institute for Higher Education Policy, EUBookshop
Challenges
The arrival of the global rankings for Universities was a game changer for policymakers and academics in the EU. Rankings show European higher education institutions lagging behind their counterparts in the United States. The United States held steady in the just-published Academic Ranking of World Universities, or ARWU, dominating global higher education with 17 universities in the top 20. Europe had 3 universities in the top 20; University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and ETH Zürich.
Dublin Institute of Technology
University World News
The Bologna Process
It is a voluntary intergovernmental process with 47 participating countries (i.e. EU and non-EU), who made a coherent system of higher education able to compete internationally, which has been imitated in other regions as Australia, Latin America and North Africa. As a consequence it became increasingly impossible to assume that all of these higher education systems were providing an education of equal quality.
European Higher Education Area (EHEA)
Change
Current status
A grouping of East European EU member states has already reached the basic goal of reducing early school leavers to 10%. Other countries as Sweden, France and Germany are very close to reaching the goal. However, the four Mediterranean countries of Malta, Portugal, Spain and Italy present a dramatically different picture. Overall in the EU-27 the number of early school leavers has been reduced over the last few years.
Eurostat
Multilingualism
The European Union is committed to promoting multilingualism and aims to have every EU citizen speak at least two foreign languages. The department of education and culture support different projects as The Comenius Programme, which aims to help young people and educational staff better understand the range of European cultures, languages and values.
EurActiv
Culture
EAC’s mission is to build a Europe of knowledge and develop the European cultural area. The European commission's proposal for a new support program, Creative Europe, aims at supporting artists and professionals in the creative sectors across Europe. The cultural sector should not be seen as a wasteland, but a reservoir of hope, ideas and new economic growth potential.
The Guardian
Key Policies
The Europe 2020 strategy envisages reducing the early school leaver rate from 15% to fewer than 10%, whilst increasing the percentage of the population aged 30-34 who have completed their tertiary education from 31% to at least 40% by 2020. The second target is particularly crucial since education plays a key role in employment and competitiveness by increasing employability and by fostering long-term growth.
European Commission
Centre for European Policy Studies - Working Document
Key Figures
The ideal of public financing of higher education is still widely shared in Europe. But the EU innovation agenda implies a major challenge to this ideal. Government finance is unable to provide enough funds for the challenges that European higher education institutions are confronted with. The gap between the European total investments in education and the United States is largely the effect of a much higher private investment level in USA (1.91% of GDP) compared to the European Union (0.35% of GDP).
OECD
Miscellaneous
The DG EAC supports many projects, but they are also criticised for having serious problems keeping track of payments to students, teachers and exchange programmes. Other studies support greater effort being made to reduce waste of resources at the level of administrators and concentrate concentrating resources on the instruments with the greatest impact could help reduce the costs arising from the management of too many projects and actions that are too small.
Centre for European Policy Studies
Flagship programmes
€19 billion has been allocated by the European Council for the new “Erasmus for All” programme for 2014-2020. Established programmes including Erasmus, Leonardo da Vinci and Comenius will be funded under the “Erasmus for All” scheme from January 1st 2014. By providing a framework and financing for studying and training abroad, it allows young Europeans to look beyond their national borders when considering their education and their future.
The New York Times
The PIE News
Transition to Globalisation
Education at a GlanceEducational attainment has a huge impact on employability, and the crisis has strengthened this impact even further. On average across OECD countries, 4.8% of individuals with a tertiary degree were unemployed in 2011, while 12.6% of those lacking a secondary education were. Between 2008 and 2011 the unemployment gap between those with low levels of education and those with high levels of education widened across all age groups.
Globalisation >> Social >> Labour Market >> Unemployment
OECD
Transition to Political Tools
Global Education Goal Falling Short: 67 Million Kids Not In School, UN ReportsWith the 2015 U.N. target for ensuring universal primary education fast approaching, the U.N. education agency warned that 67 million children are not attending school, including 28 million caught in armed conflicts. UNESCO's 2011 Global Monitoring Report concluded that the world is not on track to achieve the goal set by world leaders at a U.N. summit in 2000 "by a wide margin," despite progress in many areas.
Political Tools >> Global >> UN >> Policies >> Social >> Education
The Huffington Post
Transition to Political Actors
Gender Equality in Higher Education Must Be Made a Global PriorityThe failure of higher education institutions to fully accept women into their most senior structures has led female academics to demand a radical solution. At the British Council's Going Global conference in Dubai, an international grouping of senior women called for equality to be made a key performance indicator in quality audits of higher education institutions. The fewer women at the top table, the idea goes, the lower down the league tables a university would slide.
Political Actors >> Civil Society >> Foundations
The Guardian
