Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-02-07-Speech-4-041"
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".
Mr President, today's report on illiteracy is a very important contribution to the wider issue at European level, i.e. our review of the basic skills of literacy and a working knowledge of arithmetic as prerequisites to social integration, as prerequisites to the European Union's achieving the Lisbon objective of a knowledge-based economy.
Which brings me to the recommendation to Member States on reading and writing lessons and access to basic skills. I must stress here that we need to respect the principle of subsidiarity and take particular care in our approach to education, which is a strictly national matter. The open method of cooperation is an excellent tool, giving the Member States added value in the form of indicators and exchanges of best practices.
On the question of a European illiteracy monitoring centre, I have taken note of the proposal by the Members of Parliament on the need to use existing institutions, such as Cedefop, and I would remind the House that there are already a number of programmes, such as the OECD Pisa programme, which provide some initial answers. Before creating new tools, we need to be sure that we are making efficient use of tools which already exist.
Finally, as far as the proposal for an annual report on illiteracy to Parliament is concerned, we want to look at the most efficient way of informing Parliament and what use Parliament can make of reports on national action plans on social integration and reports via the open method of coordination, i.e. how existing means, reports which are drafted every year anyway, how this dimension can be used so that the information provided is exponential and more efficient.
We have, without doubt, entered a new stage, in which basic skills do not stop at reading and writing and now include IT skills, high-tech skills, entrepreneurship, foreign languages, interpersonal communication skills and social skills. All this can be summed up nowadays in four simple words: the need to learn. The Commission's policy in this sector will be expressed in a series of initiatives and programmes which are currently in the pipeline as a result of cooperation between the Council, Parliament and the Commission.
My first point is that the Lisbon Council in 2000 called for the Commission to draft a report on the specific future objectives of education and training systems. This report was presented in Stockholm and we are currently preparing a programme of work on the subject of the universal acquisition of basic skills, which will be presented in Barcelona. The acquisition of basic skills is one of the 13 basic objectives for the education and training systems of the European Union. This objective includes defining indicators to measure over a ten-year period the extent to which Member States ensure that all their citizens acquire a working knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic. This is the first specific indicator which will reflect developments in this sector over a ten-year period.
Secondly, I should like to remind the House of the communication which the Commission published in November 2001 on creating a European area of lifelong learning, which stresses that lifelong learning depends on acquiring basic skills.
Thirdly, I should like to mention the forthcoming action plan on skills and mobility in the European Union which the Commission, by which I mean President Prodi and I, are due to announce next week, the aim of which is to achieve a real European job market based on mobility and a minimum level of common skills at European level.
My fourth point concerns the Community strategy on combating social exclusion. As you know, the bottom line in the national actions plans of most countries is that there is a direct link between social exclusion and the acquisition of basic skills. And both the Equal programme and the Social Fund make provision for funding for individual programmes relating to access to basic skills, especially by groups subject to discrimination. And we must not forget that certain groups, such as people with disabilities and immigrants, must overcome even greater problems in order to acquire basic skills.
My fifth point concerns cooperation at international level, in other words, our international strategy. The European Commission is working with the OECD, ΑSΕΜ and G8 to support direct action to get basic skills put on the corresponding agendas.
Which brings me to the report and, more specifically, to the application of the open method of coordination. As I mentioned in relation to the strategy on exclusion, we can take it as given that the Council of education ministers will approve the open method of coordination on common objectives for education and training systems next week.
As far as the Green Paper is concerned, I must express a certain reticence, mainly because numerous new policy initiatives have been started, important matters are in the pipeline in various Councils and we are now in a position to take action on illiteracy; it would perhaps mean additional delays if we were to proceed with the Green Paper, given that we now have most of the information we need from work carried out in previous years."@en1
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