Citation
(2003), "Council allays German fears on education benchmarking", Education + Training, Vol. 45 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/et.2003.00445dab.010
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited
Council allays German fears on education benchmarking
Council allays German fears on education benchmarking
Education benchmarks should not be used as a basis for telling individual member states what to do or to define national education targets, ministers meeting in the EU Education Council have decided. Petros Efthymiou, the Greek Education Minister, who chaired the meeting, said after the event: "The reference criteria enable us to make our education systems converge while keeping the specific features of each."
Germany, where individual Lander, or states, decide much of education policy, had feared that the benchmarks would open the way to too much EU interference in education policy, but its fears appear to have been allayed. The benchmarks will be defined, ministers decided, as averages to which member states will contribute through their own national actions and policies. The benchmarks aim to:
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reduce the number of early school leavers;
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increase the numbers of people graduating in mathematics, science and technology;
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increase the percentage of people completing further education;
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increase the number of people achieving basic skills in reading, mathematics and science; and
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increase the percentage of the population taking part in lifelong learning.
Ministers debated a paper drawn up by the Greek presidency that focuses on the need for education and training systems to respond to the challenges of the knowledge-based society, and to address such other challenges as increasing social cohesion and promoting tolerance and respect for human rights. The paper concedes that while economic growth and job creation are important, education and training systems must be more than simply "servants of employment or economic growth".
The council finalized the e-learning programme, which aims to promote the integration of information and communication technologies into Europe's education and training systems.