Lifelong Learning - A goal for the next century
In a recent interview with CORDIS RTD-News, Dr. Thomas O'Dwyer, Director-General of DG XXII, talked about the Commission's plans in the area of education and training. Could you briefly outline the areas of competence of DG XXII? How does it differ from the Task Force for Human Resources which it replaced? DG XXII is the Commission department responsible for education, training and youth work - i.e. for developing a European dimension, in these areas, to support and supplement actions at national level. The Member States retain responsibility for the content and structure of their education and training systems. The decision to create a Commission department to replace the former Task Force on Human Resources is based on the Treaty on European Union (TEU), signed in Maastricht. Articles 126 and 127 of the Treaty require the Community to contribute to the development of quality education and to implement a vocational training policy. In effect, these new articles amount to greater recognition of the Community's role in these areas at a time when education and training are seen as key elements in Europe's future economic growth, competitiveness and employment. The programmes developed and implemented by DG XXII, which were among the first to follow on from the TEU, both rationalize and extend initiatives launched in the 1980s. Thus, the new SOCRATES programme now covers all levels of education and training, from primary school to adult education; the LEONARDO DA VINCI programme integrates and builds on previous programmes in vocational training, such as PETRA and FORCE; and the Youth for Europe III initiative provides a single coherent framework for action to help young people outside formal education and training structures. These programmes, which will run until the end of 1999, provide a centre of gravity for the coordination of European cooperation across a vast and, inevitably, dispersed field of activities already covering 18 countries. Their role overall is to promote innovation in meeting education and training needs within the broader context of a transition towards lifelong learning in the 21st century. Further initiatives are, moreover, in the pipeline. These will, notably, include a White Paper on education and training scheduled for the end of this year. This can be expected to constitute a major forward-thinking exercise across the range of learning issues at European level. Technological development in general, and the information society in particular, are calling for a new range of skills from the working population - and even those who do not work. How will the challenge of providing these new skills be met? The challenge of providing new skills is not new, but the pace of change means it can no longer be met on the basis of learning one's trade in a few months or years, after leaving school. This is the tradition Europe has inherited and, like an oil-tanker, it is slow to turn around. One obvious difficulty is that future requirements are hard to predict. Many recent science graduates, for instance, are disappointed by their current job prospects after having been encouraged to think their skills would be increasingly in demand under the pressure of technological change. Yet this makes it all the clearer that flexibility, core abilities and personal qualities must accompany more formal skills. Employers repeatedly make the point that interpersonal skills, problem-solving ability, a sense of initiative, commercial awareness and even common sense are required alongside vocational qualifications. Education, training and employment are closely interrelated and the key issue is to equip people with the ability to learn how to learn. The provision of education and training is likely to undergo considerable changes, not least through open and distance learning; and it may be accomplished as much at home or in the workplace as it has been at school or college. Yet the most important change in meeting the skills challenge is more a matter of attitudes and perceptions than of training structures per se. Alongside working time and leisure time, Europeans will have to get used to the idea of learning time. On a personal note, let me add that I do not regard this new approach of continuous learning as only a further extension of competitive pressure. Lifelong learning should be an antidote to the rat-race, not a symptom of it. - How will the initiatives of the European Commission in the area of education, training and youth contribute to the competitive advantage of Europe in the global marketplace for work? The importance of Europe's competitiveness in the field of education, training and preparing young people for working life has been stressed at successive high-level meetings in recent years. The question is what added value can European cooperation bring to this area. Since 2+2=4 everywhere, what is the advantage of learning abroad? I can see at least five ways in which European programmes add value to education and training: - In purely educational terms, it is instructive to learn about something from a different perspective. The story of the European discovery of the New World, for example, cannot adequately be told only from a British, French, Dutch, Portuguese or Spanish point of view; - The EU Member States are confronted with similar issues in education and training but approach them in a great variety of different ways. By opening up Europe to exchanges of know-how and experience, the European programmes open up a range of ideas and solutions. This diversity is one of the EU's principal assets; - International trade is increasing at double the rate of output and the internationalization of the economy has prompted comparisons of competitiveness that amount to an industry in themselves, as any airport bookshop can confirm. Yet much of this literature is still to do with competitive efficiency in the manufacturing industry, which represents less than a third of today's jobs in modern economies. Less attention is given to human resources efficiency, to raising the quality of education and investing in people and skills across the full range of the economy. In this context, the European programmes have much to offer in that they allow people to swap solutions and learn from each other. They bring them together to develop innovative learning methods and materials on a transnational basis; - Mobility and exchange schemes not only widen horizons but encourage those hard-to-quantify characteristics, such as self-reliance and openness to others, that need to accompany academic and vocational qualifications. Discovering another country is also a form of self-discovery. The European programmes provide not only educational and vocational training but also what might be called formative experience. And in an increasingly international economy, employers value experience gained abroad and language skills which are seen as contributing to competitive advantage; - Since the opening up of the single European market, the free movement of goods, capital and services has on the whole been easier to achieve than the free movement of people. We do not yet in practice have a fully open European area for learning and working, because people come accompanied by paperwork that in some respects still amounts to a labyrinth. In the case of student grants, for instance, deductions for tax and other payments range from 0% to 61% in different EU Member States. The European education and training programmes have played a pioneering role in straightening out these obstacles to mobility and recognition for students, trainees, teachers, instructors and administrators. Now this kind of inertia needs to be lifted throughout the EU so that the single European market can achieve its full competitive dynamism. The EU is more than a single market. Although your question refers specifically to Europe's competitive edge, the economy is a blend of competition and collaboration, enterprise and regulation - all of which are part of what has been called the European model of society. Perhaps the greatest long-term contribution of the European education and training programmes will derive from their role in making Europe a more real and familiar concept to the generation of young people who will shape that model in future, develop the concept of European citizenship, and confront the challenges of competition at a European level. - In the context of education and training, what priority is given to initiatives in the area of RTD? What measures are planned in this area ? The 1993 White Paper on growth, competitiveness and employment devoted two major chapters to research and education. They go together not only because both belong to the continuum of "intangible investment"' - investing in skills and intelligence - but also because of the need for research into education and training at a time of potentially far-reaching change. To a large extent, the SOCRATES, LEONARDO, Youth for Europe and TEMPUS programmes themselves constitute a form of laboratory, not only in respect of the cooperation and exchange schemes across Europe, but through the examination of basic questions concerning both content and methods required for education and training in the 21st century. One indication of the priorities for educational research is the attention given to teaching and learning by the special G7 conference on the Information Society held in Brussels earlier this year. Striking a balance between traditional education/training systems and the new technological environment is a major theme for research. Other subjects to be examined include the linkage between training and employment and use of new technology in this context, as well as research into means of providing a second chance for people who missed out at school the first time around. In parallel with the work to be carried out under the specific programme for targeted socio-economic research under the Fourth Framework Programme, the Commission has also set up a special Task Force on multimedia educational software, an area of great promise for European research and technology development.