Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-02-25-Speech-3-139"
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"en.20040225.10.3-139"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, what exactly is the role of public schools? How far does it extend and in what does it consist? In his report, Mr Graça Moura deals very well with these questions. He considers the extent to which culture should be taught in schools and also at how far this should be financed and supported. These issues are, of course, mutually dependent. I think it is very important to teach culture in schools if we want young people to be aware of and confident about their identity, and capable of becoming active European citizens. We need to work on this and introduce young people to cultural exchange as early as possible. We also need to learn how to teach young people about conflict resolution, as this is something that we would expect schools to include in their lessons on culture and is a prerequisite for achieving the goals set in Lisbon which have been mentioned many times already today.
We cannot ignore the fact that European culture and cultural history form the foundation of the common economic area and that we therefore need to invest much more in education than we are presently doing. The EU average for public expenditure on schools is 4.94% of GDP. Although in Sweden expenditure is 7% and in Austria 5.75%, these figures are both declining. It just cannot be right that in many countries, less is now being spent on education instead of more.
I wonder what the culture ministers and government officials are thinking when they lend their support to the goals set in Lisbon and at the same time reduce the means for implementing them. This is wrong and needs to be put right. We must, therefore, continue to point out that cuts in the field of education – even in the arts – lead to very serious deficiencies. After all, if creativity is not taught and not given any room to develop, how can young people learn to deal with the constant changes that will be demanded of them in their careers and personal lives? The first step should be to increase investment in art, culture and knowledge, not reduce it. Instead of merely preserving our much-praised cultural diversity, we need to promote it and allow it to enjoy a successful future."@en1
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