Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-17-Speech-3-428"
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"en.20081217.25.3-428"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner Figel’, ladies and gentlemen, when the topic turns to education in Europe, everybody talks about Bologna – and rightly so. Since, in 1999, the EU Member States decided to create a common European higher education area by 2010, many barriers to mobility have been removed. Thinking in terms of bachelors and masters degrees and recognising educational achievements by means of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS) creates an awareness of the need for common action.
The idea is for vocational education and training (VET) to proceed according to the very same principle. One milestone was the 2002 Barcelona Summit, which called for the transnational recognition of learning outcomes. The same year saw the launch of the Copenhagen process on enhanced European cooperation in vocational education and training. In 2006, we set out new conditions, namely the European Qualifications Framework (EQF). I was rapporteur for the European Parliament’s own-initiative report at that time.
The EQF has three functions: firstly, linking national and sectoral qualifications frameworks; secondly, ensuring comparability of vocational and general education; and, thirdly, ensuring transparency and permeability.
To enable these learning outcomes to be transferred and recognised, the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) has now been established. Only when transparency of abilities and skills has been achieved will all obstacles to their transferability and acceptance have been removed, both at Member State and transnational level. In this way, ECVET contributes to the expansion of European cooperation in general and vocational education.
ECVET will increase openness to mobility and make career plans easier to realise, and should also increase the social inclusion of workers and learners. The serious commitment to complying with quality criteria in VET means that specific national characteristics must be taken into consideration. Not everyone is familiar with how the close cooperation between schools and industry works – the dual system, that is – and not everyone is aware of the considerable investment in terms of skills, time and cost involved in gaining a master craftsman’s diploma or recognition as a ‘Fachwirt’ (a non-academic professional qualification). Member States’ activities should be supplemented and their cooperation enhanced. As regards the credit points, there must be guarantees that modules for the assessment of knowledge and competences can be added in some cases whilst a final examination may continue to be required in others. This freedom is essential.
Ladies and gentlemen, the fact that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs voted almost unanimously in favour of my report gave me the impetus to hold negotiations with the Commission and the Council. We met in Bordeaux, on the margins of an education conference held by the French Presidency. I should like to thank all the shadow rapporteurs for endorsing this compromise.
I hope that the work we have done together will be regarded as making a competent contribution to making VET efficient, transparent and mobile. May ECVET become an important building block for the European learning zone."@en1
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