Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-09-25-Speech-1-172"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20060925.19.1-172"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
".
Mr President, Commissioner Figeľ, ladies and gentlemen, since we in the European Union are unable to compete with the low wages and minimal social standards of emerging economies, we must instead be consistent in developing our potential for high-quality work, and for that training in skills and continuing education are essential. In March 2005, the education ministers of the twenty-five EU Member States declared their willingness to modernise their national systems in order to enable individuals to adapt themselves to the ever more exacting demands of the domestic and international markets.
There are still high barriers impeding access to education and training between one institution and another and between Member States, preventing knowledge and skills from being effectively applied, and making qualifications less than transparent, with the consequence that there is not enough recognition of degree and diploma qualifications outside the country in which they were acquired, but the more transparent the school, vocational education and university systems are, the more readily the specific models used in the Member States – for example, the quality of dual system in my own country, Germany, and the value of a master craftsman’s qualification – can be assessed.
The European Qualifications Framework is a meta-framework with three functions. Firstly, it is intended to link national and international qualifications. Secondly, it is intended to ensure that vocational and general educational qualifications are recognised and capable of being recognised and transferred, and, thirdly, it is intended to ensure greater transparency, permeability and mobility. The European Qualifications Framework is founded upon eight reference levels that categorise learning outcomes, ranging from basic skills for simple tasks to the highly specific competences required for academic education. At every one of these eight levels, irrespective of the educational route pursued, it must be possible to acquire work-related skills. This has met with broad approval from the social partners, from chambers of commerce and industry and the governing bodies of crafts and trades, from educational institutions, teachers in vocational colleges, trainees and apprentices and those who train them, and students at schools and colleges, for all of them are aware that the Member States’ schemes are not being replaced, but rather extended on the basis of expert knowledge to be implemented on a voluntary basis.
As your House’s rapporteur, I have expressed criticism of a number of points in the Commission’s proposal as representing an excessive emphasis on academic education and taking insufficient account of vocational training. I still believe that there is an insufficiently clear link to the labour market. The European Qualifications Framework must have as its goals those of
growth and employment, as set by Lisbon II, combining on the one hand the competitiveness of businesses and, on the other, the employability of individuals. The Committee for Employment and Social Affairs shared my objections, and I was very glad to see my colleagues – many of whom are present today – submitting proposals and, apart from three abstentions, voting unanimously to adopt this report.
Among other things, we endorse the revision of the qualifications framework to include the comparability of the outcomes of learning processes, in marked contrast to many previous evaluations, which have considered only the duration of the learning process and the type of qualification gained from it. What is most important to us is that vocational and academic education should be treated as being of equal value, being two sides of the same coin, namely the Bologna process aimed at creating a common European framework for higher education and the Copenhagen process for enhancing European cooperation in vocational education. The European Qualifications Framework will succeed only if national qualifications frameworks come into being in all the Member States, if it is then possible to develop them, and if they can be properly coupled to the European Qualifications Framework by 2009. My hope is that what the Framework contains will be made accessible to the public at large – in which we in this House will certainly play our part – and that the social partners, the providers of education and the institutions will cooperate in good faith. Only then will the right tools be available for the educational establishments and for working life in the European Union."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples