Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-26-Speech-3-392"
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"en.20070926.24.3-392"2
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"Madam President, I really welcome this initiative of the Parliament to take further the message of our communication, which we adopted on this topic last year.
Your initiative will bring us closer to the development of life-long learning strategies that foster equality, inclusion, integration, and social cohesion. We will take full account of it in our forthcoming initiatives in the field of education and training, especially in the proposal for the 2008 Joint Report on the implementation of our work programme and our reflections for the future, and in the Green Paper on the links between education and migration, in which inequalities will be a central issue. We hope to present this communication next spring.
I read your report with a lot of interest and I also listened now to Mr Zatloukal, whom I want to congratulate cordially because I think and I feel we are partners on this issue, in this debate and in efforts to improve the situation.
We could listen now to a description of socioeconomic challenges that we are facing individually, collectively, together, but also of the importance of investment – better investment, more investment – in education and training policies. I think that education and training policy lies at the centre of our efforts to create a more prosperous and a more cohesive European society.
All European education systems are marked by educational inequities that reflect socioeconomic inequalities. The paradoxical role of education and training in relation to these inequalities is that they very often contribute to their perpetuation. But they are sometimes the only vehicle by which inequalities can be ameliorated.
Across Europe, the process of modernising education and training systems is largely driven by the search for greater efficiency in terms of cost-effectiveness. I think this is really desirable, of course, but it is frequently, and wrongly, assumed that efficiency and equity are mutually exclusive.
As part of our commitment to helping Member States improve their education and training systems, the Commission’s communication showed that efficiency and equity do not have to come at the expense of each other, at the expense of quality. Efficiency and equity are, in effect, mutually enforcing. I think this is the most important message from the whole communication.
Your report stresses strongly the need for European education and training systems to be both efficient and equitable if they are to help us to achieve not only economic growth but social cohesion.
I am especially pleased to see your emphasis on the need to develop efficient and equitable policies for the whole life-long learning continuum and on the need to invest in education early, as investing in quality early-childhood and pre-primary education and care is shown to be the most effective way of breaking the cycle of disadvantage.
I am also pleased to notice that you confirm our message that early tracking of pupils has detrimental effects on efficiency and equity. And, of course, you place a lot of emphasis on the need to develop a culture of evaluation in order to develop effective long-term policies and create policies based on solid evidence."@en1
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