Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-01-31-Speech-3-224"
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"en.20070131.24.3-224"2
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".
Mr President, I wish to begin by congratulating Mrs Flasarová and the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality on this excellent report. It represents a comprehensive and balanced overview of the problems women and young girls face in education and later in their professional life.
Let me thank you once again for your report.
While the fight against all forms of discrimination is a core principle of the European Union, the fight against gender discrimination has gone a step further. All Commission departments must take gender differences into account when preparing proposals.
In the field of education, there has been a positive evolution, as your report also states. In the European Union there is no discrimination in access to education for young girls, and girls often achieve better marks than boys. Nonetheless, there are serious problems in some parts of the population. The report points to vulnerable groups where gender differences may combine with other factors to exclude women and girls from the full benefit of education.
Our first priority is to attend to the needs of these groups and to point to effective solutions. Our work will focus on efficiency and equity in education and training systems, because gender discrimination is a component of a wider social and cultural problem and requires wide-ranging measures.
In 2007 we will produce two major communications. The first is on pre-primary education. Early-start programmes produce short-term results, but they also build lifelong learning capacities and develop the values that reject discrimination.
The second communication this year will address education and immigration. Immigration contributes to European growth and competitiveness. However, PISA results show that immigrant children tend to have lower school results. In some cultures young girls face specific handicaps.
In the new Lifelong Learning Programme, equality of opportunities is a transversal priority. Its first call for proposals has just been published. The progress report on education and training 2010 for the whole decade will take another look at the benchmark on science, mathematics and technology and at the gender balance in these careers. I am happy to report that the initial target has been achieved – actually this is the only target out of five benchmarks in which we are progressing quite well in the 27 EU Member States.
My services and those of my colleague, Mr Potočnik, in research, have worked together for some time to fight gender discrimination in scientific and technical careers. This work can benefit other sectors and we will build on it.
In the field of the information society, the digital divide is growing. As your report points out, women can benefit from new technology. My colleague, Mrs Reding, is leading an initiative on e-Inclusion, which takes gender issues into account, and the European Social Fund has a strong tradition in fighting gender discrimination. The regulations for the period 2007-2013 can fund actions in all the aspects pinpointed in your report. These are considerable opportunities for education and training that are provided for by the structural funds."@en1
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