effe infobrief 2010_4

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european forum for freedom in education

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NEWSLETTER INFOBRIEF NEWSLETTER

INFOBRIEF

04/2010

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fr die Zukunft der Kinder pour lavenir des enfants for the future of the children

Dear effe-members,

We are already getting excited about our Colloquium which is taking place fromthe 18th 20th November 2010 at the University of Witten/Herdecke. We wouldbe delighted to see you there. For more information, please log on to our website

at www.effe-eu.org.

We would be happy to give you some more information.

Theme of the Newsletter:

The Belgian Presidency of the European Council

Youth on the Move - The new flagship initiative of theEuropean Commission

News from effe in Brussels

The Belgian Presidency of the

European Council

In

July of this year Belgium took over fromSpain as the holder of the EU CouncilPresidency. The Belgian Presidency isonly the 2nd under the new Lisbontreaty and they must continue to adjustto the new working dynamic betweenthemselves and the permanent Presi-dent of the Council, Herman Van Rom-puy. It will be interesting to see how theBelgian Presidency can make its markconsidering the current domestic nego-tiations1 to build a national govern-ment.

The effects of the world financial crisisinevitably dominate the agenda. To-gether with the previous Spanish Presi-

1

See: http://www.euractiv.com/en/priorities/divided-belgium-prepares-take-eu-presidency-news-495422


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www.effe-eu.org european forum for freedom in education page 2 von 5


dency and the Hungarian Presidencywhich will follow in 2011, Belgiummakes up the so-called trio of three

Presidencies which work side-by-side forpolicy continuity. Belgium is looking forfinancial reform as much as economicrecovery and has published extensiveproposals for stricter financial regula-tion. The ultimate goal however is thelong-term prosperity of Europe and thisis where education features.2

Because there are the three differentlanguage communities in Belgium, theworkings of government are a littlemore complicated than in other EUcountries. There are three regions(Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) but

also three communities (the Flemish,French and German-speaking communi-

ties). Whilst the government of theFrench-speaking community is respon-sible for the Wallonia and German-speaking regions, the Flemish govern-ment runs Flanders. Education in Bel-gium is therefore the responsibility ofthe different language communities and

2 See:

http://www.eutrio.be/files/bveu/media/source1854/documents/27782_PL_SPF_UK.pdf (pp.42-45)

each of the Flemish, French and Germanspeaking communities each have theirown ministers for Education. Since these

separations of government carry acrossto the Belgian Presidency, different pol-icy areas have been assigned to differ-ent language community governments.The Flemish speaking community isprincipally in charge of education forBelgiums Presidency, but both theFlemish and French-speaking govern-ments have highlighted the importanceof education, in particular the role ofeducation in combating social inclusion.Since 2010 is the European Year forCombating Poverty and Social Exclusionthis debate comes at an appropriatetime.3

A conference entitled Breaking the Cy-cle of Disadvantage: Social inclusion inand through education was organisedby the Belgian Presidency and theCommission in September and it soughtto deal with the issues surrounding so-cial inequality. They explain that high-

quality education increases the chancesof social mobility and of breaking thevicious circle of poverty and social ex-clusion.4

The Belgian government is also workingto achieve the existing Europe 2020goal of reducing the school drop-outrate to 10% as well as to increase gen-eral mobility amongst young people inEurope.5 The Commissions Youth onthe Move scheme published this yearhopes to play a major part in achievingthese goals. They propose further sup-porting the existing life-long learningprogrammes like ERASMUS in additionto introducing new schemes such as the

Youth on the Move Card which aims toease the integration of young people

3

See:http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=637


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when they move abroad to study orwork. 6

Whenever it comes to education policy,

the European Union continues to under-score the over-arching economic impor-tance of education for the future eco-nomic prosperity of Europe. Debateslike the Breaking the Cycle of Disad-vantage as mentioned above, whichconcern education policies in their ownright are though a welcome step in theright direction.

Youth on the Move

The new flagship initiative ofthe European Commission

Youth on the Moveis the new flagshipproposal from the European Commissionthat was published in September of thisyear. Broadly, it aims to unleash the

potential of young people to achieve

smart, sustainable and inclusive growthin the European Union.7 In otherwords, it hopes to make it easier foryoung people to get the education theyrequire, to find employment and tomove around Europe to study and/orlive. The driving motivation behind thisis to make the European Union a moreeconomically prosperous and stableplace in the future. Though individualmember states remain in charge of na-

tional education policies, the European

4 See:

http://www.education2010.be/en/calendar/social-inclusion/

5 See:

http://www.eutrio.be/files/bveu/media/source1854/documents/27782_PL_SPF_UK.pdf (p.42)6 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf7

See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf(p.3)

Union hopes to strengthen cooperationbetween members as well as lend theresupport to successful projects and poli-cies.8 The initiative is part of the

Europe 20209 strategy which followson from the Lisbon Strategy 10 from2000. effe welcomes this paper fromthe European Commission, the acknowl-edgement of youth issues and the pro-motion of opportunities and greaterfreedoms for the young people ofEurope.

There are three main headline objec-tives of the Youth on the Move initia-tive11:

1) The first is to reach a 75% em-

ployment level amongst 20-64year olds.

Programmes aimed at achieving thisgoal include the Your first EURES Job12which looks to help young people getaccess to employment and encourageemployers to take on young, mobileworkers. A European Vacancy Moni-

8 See: http://europa.eu/pol/educ/index_en.htm9

See:

http://ec.europa.eu/eu2020/pdf/COMPLET%20EN%20BARROSO%20%20%20007%20-%20Europe%202020%20-%20EN%20version.pdf10 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/focus/focus479_en.htm11 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf (p.3)12 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf (p.14)


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tor13 will publish information on skillsshortages in different areas with theintention to help inform decisions about

moving abroad to work. A EuropeanSkills passport14 hopes to make skillsmore internationally transferable whilstthe Youth on the Move Card15 schemewill try to speed up the integrationprocess for young learners and workerswhen moving abroad.

2) The second goal is to have 40%of 30-34 year olds with a com-pleted tertiary or equivalent edu-cation.

The Bologna process along with theEuropean Credit Transfer System16(ECTS) and European QualificationsFramework17 (EQF) started the processof standardisation amongst universitiesin Europe to make academic studyingabroad easier. The Commission will re-iterate its belief that an investment of2% of GDP is required for a fully fundeduniversity system and will study the op-tion of developing an alternative globaluniversity ranking system with less em-phasis on research.18 The Commission

13 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/ireland/press_office/news_of_the_day/eu-jobs-vacancy-monitor_en.htm14 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf (p.12)15

See:http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf (p.12)16

See: http://ec.europa.eu/education/lifelong-learning-policy/doc/ects/guide_en.pdf17

See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/pub/pdf/general/eqf/leaflet_en.pdf18

See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf(p.9) The Commissions thinking behind this is that a

new ranking system is required to address what it sees

as the existing ranking systems bias towards American

universities at the expense of European institutions.The Commission hopes that a new ranking system

would also like to promote more voca-tional education and training (referredto by the Commission as VET). Skills

gained from apprenticeships are notonly seen by the Commission as beingincreasingly in demand19 but they alsoregard it as another helpful means oftransition between school and the worldofwork.

3) The third objective is to reducethe early school-leaving to 10%.

There are three types of learning; for-mal (officially recognised qualificationsand learning at school or university forexample), non-formal (private tuition,further and advanced training, often aspart of job training) and finally informal(which encompasses everything learntin day-to-day life such as hobbies orplaying sports).20 The European Com-mission would like to encourage thevalidation of non-formal and informallearning21 alongside formal learning

would properly take into account other factors aside

from research, like quality of teaching, innovation and

internationalism and therefore enhance the attractive-

ness of European institutions at home and abroad.19

See:

http://ec.europa.eu/education/yom/com_en.pdf(p.6)20 See: Der Einfluss der Europischen Union auf nati-

onale Bildung (pp.19-27) inRecht & Bildung: Sonder-

heft Nr. 3 (IfBB); Liekenbrock, Anne; June 201021

See:



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which it feels is often undervalued byprospective employers. 2011 will also bethe European Year of Volunteering dur-

ing which volunteering schemes as wellas the importance and value of volun-teering shall be promoted.22 Clear andinformed careers guidance coupled witha strong set of alternatives to purelyformal, academic learning, it is hoped,will help reduce the school-drop rate.23

As the title of the initiative suggests in-creasing the mobility of young people inEurope lays at the heart of this pro-posal. This goal of increased freedom intraining and education is certainly wor-thy of effes appreciation, albeit ulti-mately for economic reasons. There isno silver-bullet or one-size-fits-all solu-tion to any of the problems and difficul-ties which young people face in thesedifficult economic climate or indeed oth-erwise. But the European Commissionhopes that with the Youth on the Moveinitiative, they have a set of schemes topromote individual freedom and com-

munal prosperity within the EuropeanUnion.

News from effe in Brussels

The effe office in Brussels appointed anew intern to support the Europeanwork. Joshua Tebbutt is native English

and speaks fluent French and German.You can contact him via [email protected] with any general questions.

22 See:

http://ec.europa.eu/citizenship/news/news820_en.htm23

See:


effe applied for a European Union project grant in the area of Youth in Ac-tion at the beginning of September

2010. effe is hoping to receive supportfor a Europe wide project concerningYouth Democracy Projects. An answerfrom the European Commission will begiven by February 2011.

effe has set up a new Facebook pagewhich can be found by searching forEuropean Forum for Freedom in Educa-tion. It can be linked to your profilepages. News concerning education poli-cies of the European Union as well aseffe will be announced via this page.

Editorial:Anne LiekenbrockElisabeth KpkeJoshua Tebbutt (intern)

Mergelteichstr. 5944225 DortmundTel. +49-231-88083322

Fax +49-231-88083322

GLS Gemeinschaftsbank Bankkonto:4036 377 800Bankleitzahl: 430 609 67IBAN: DE49 430 609 674 036 277 800SWIFT-BIC: GENODE M 1 GLS

effe infobrief 2010_4

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