In a Communication adopted today, the Commission stresses the need for European education and training systems to be both efficient and equitable if they are to achieve the necessary quality to help create more growth, jobs and social cohesion. The process of modernising education and training systems in Member States is largely driven by the search for greater efficiency and cost effectiveness. Whilst efficient systems are obviously a pre-requisite for success, the Commission argues that efficiency does not have to come at the expense of equity, and proposes four main areas for action by the Member States.
“Efficient education and training systems can have a significant positive impact on our economy and society,” said Ján Figel’, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture, and Multilingualism, “but inequities in education and training have huge hidden costs which are rarely shown in public accounting systems. If we forget the social dimension of education and training, we risk incurring huge corrective costs later on. Today’s Communication challenges the Member States to step up their efforts to improve both the efficiency and the equity of their education and training systems, to ensure that every citizen, especially the disadvantaged, can play their full part in society and the economy.”
Investing more and better in human capital is at the heart of the Lisbon strategy to create more jobs and growth. The Commission’s analysis concludes that education and training policies should aim to improve the knowledge, skills and competences of individuals, especially the most disadvantaged, and of society as a whole. They should increase efficiency by raising the average skill level in the population and reduce inequality by improving the life opportunities of those most in need and by narrowing the gap between the best and worst qualified individuals. But these are not mutually exclusive objectives. Achieving high quality does not necessarily mean sacrificing equitable opportunities, access, treatment and outcomes for individual Europeans. The Communication emphasises four main points:
- Member States should invest more in pre-primary education. Results from a number of Member States show that pre-primary education yields the highest returns in terms of the achievement and social adaptation of children. It is the most effective means to establish the basis for further learning, preventing school drop-out, increasing equity of outcomes and overall skill levels.
- Member States should not separate pupils into educational ‘tracks’ at too early an age. This practice has been found to exacerbate the effect of socio-economic background on educational attainment and does not raise efficiency in the long run.
- Contrary to what is often assumed, entirely state-funded, “free” systems of higher education do not guarantee equitable access and participation. In fact, those systems funded entirely by the state may bring about a reverse distribution from the poor to the rich, since all taxpayers, including those who have not benefited from higher education, bear the cost of the system. The Commission underlines the importance of generating higher investment for higher education from public and private sources, including through tuition fees, combined with support targeted at socially disadvantaged students.
- Member States need to develop a ‘culture of evaluation’. When deciding on their investment priorities, Member States must first understand what is happening in their education and training systems – this is a basic principle of evidence-based policy-making. Since the results of investment in education and training only build up over time, they will need a statistical infrastructure capable of collecting appropriate data, and mechanisms to assess progress and measure success.
The European Commission is committed to helping the Member States improve the design and implementation of their education and training policies by facilitating the exchange of information, data and best practices through mutual learning and peer review. Efficiency and equity will be a priority theme in this work and the EU will place particular emphasis on developing a culture of evaluation and on exchanges of best practice on the issues raised in the communication.
For further information see:
MEMO/06/321
http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/2010/back_gen_en.html