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IP/06/618
Brussels, 16 May 2006
Europe’s education and training: additional efforts are needed to
meet Lisbon targets
While noting positive
trends in certain areas, the overall progress of Europe’s education
and training systems towards the goals set in the Lisbon strategy is
insufficient. This is the main finding of the 2006 edition of the
European Commission’s annual report on progress towards the Lisbon
objectives in the field of education and training, which is
published today. The staff working paper analyses progress achieved
since 2000 and focuses on five education benchmarks. On the positive
side, Member States have successfully increased the number of
tertiary-level maths, science and technology graduates. However,
progress was only moderate in increasing participation in lifelong
learning and in reducing the number of early school leavers. And
little or no progress has so far been achieved in expanding the
share of young people who finish upper-secondary school, and
reducing the number of 15-year-olds with poor reading skills.
Ján Figel’, European
Commissioner for Education & Training, said that “education and
training are vital for achieving the goals set in 2000 by the
European Council at Lisbon. Consequently, the Member States agreed
to work towards common objectives for their education and training
systems and that their progress would be monitored against a set of
five benchmarks that are key pillars for improving education and
training in Europe, It is clear that additional efforts are urgently
needed to achieve the five benchmarks by 2010.” The Commissioner
concluded that “without better education and training systems,
and wider participation in them, Europe’s competitiveness cannot be
improved. Investment in human capital is therefore clearly a vital
investment in Europe’s future.”
Among the main findings of
the report:
1. In the EU, about 6
million young people (18-24 years olds) have left education
prematurely (2005 data). If we are to reach the European
benchmark of no more than 10% early school leavers, then 2 million
of these young people would need to continue in education.
The majority of Member
States must increase their efforts in the coming years to help reach
the EU target. The best performing EU countries as regards
the share of early school leavers are: Poland (5.5%), Slovakia
(5.8%) and the Czech Republic (6.4%).
2. If present trends
continue, some 1 million students will graduate in maths, science
and technology (MST) every year in the EU in 2010, compared to
the present level of 755 000 graduates.
The best-performing
countries in terms of MST graduates per 1 000 of the
population aged 20-29 are: Ireland (24.2), France (22.2), and
the UK (21.0), while in terms of female graduates Estonia (42.5%),
Cyprus (42.0%) and Portugal (41.5%) have the highest proportion.
3. In order to achieve
the EU benchmark of an 85% upper-secondary school completion rate
by 2010, an additional 2 million young people (aged 20-24
years) would need to complete upper-secondary education.
The best-performing EU
countries are: Slovakia (91.5%), Slovenia (90.6%) and the Czech
Republic (90.3%).
4. An additional 4 million
adults would need to participate in lifelong learning
within any four week period in 2010 if the EU benchmark of 12.5%
participation rate is to be achieved.
The best-performing EU
countries in this regard are: Sweden (34.7%), United Kingdom
(29.1%) and Denmark (27.6%)
5. About one in every five
15-year-old pupils in the EU is presently a poor reader.
Reaching the European benchmark for 2010 would imply that 200 000
pupils would have to improve their standard of reading.
The EU has still a long
way to go to reach the objective set by the Council of reducing this
percentage by 20% (to reach 15.5%) by 2010. The best-performing
EU countries are: Finland (5.7%), Ireland (11%) and the
Netherlands (11.5%).
6. The EU would need to
more than double the amount it invests per tertiary-level student
(i.e. an increase of around 10 000 euros per year)
to match the spending level in the USA.
Public
investment in education
and training as a percentage of GDP has grown slightly since the
adoption of the Lisbon strategy, and is comparable with levels in
the USA (and higher than in Japan). However, rates of private
investment in educational institutions are modest in most Member
States compared with the leading countries in the world (incl. the
USA), especially in higher education.
7. During the coming 10
years, the EU needs to attract at least 1 million newly qualified
teachers in
order to replace those who will leave the profession due to
retirement.
8. Most EU students are
not taught at least two foreign languages
from an early age, as requested by the Barcelona 2002 European
Council.
At present (2003 data), an
average of only 1.3 and 1.6 foreign languages per pupil are taught
in the Member States in general lower- and upper-secondary education
respectively.
Full report available at :
http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/objectives_en.html#measuring |
Una
grande responsabilità dunque per i paesi dell'Unione e in particolare per
l'Italia, che in quasi tutte le aree strategiche esaminate (dispersione
scolastica, numero di giovani che hanno raggiunto almeno il diploma,
competenze-chiave, partecipazione degli adulti a corsi di istruzione permanente,
multilinguismo e fondi destinati all'istruzione) non è tra le nazioni con i
risultati migliori. 
