Update June 23, 2020
Learning Objectives:
1. Summary of "Education policy of the European Union" ppt
2. Reading material:
The Key Stages in the History of Education at Community Level
1. 1948-68: education absent from European integration at the beginning
At the end of the Second World War, there were great hopes of a unified Europe. And yet, countries set up intergovernmental bodies that were not capable of leading Europe to integration. It took the genius of Jean Monnet and the decisive political support of Robert Schuman, among others, to launch this integration, which was essential for a lasting peace. At that time, it was decided to build the European Community step by step. Priority was given to the economy, a sector that was considered to be capable of bringing together former enemies in a supranational undertaking. It was therefore decided to start by pooling the war industries of coal and steel (ECSC Treaty signed in 1951); this was followed by the treaties signed in Rome in 1957: the establishment of the common market, the customs union and the common agricultural policy (EEC Treaty), and atomic energy (Euratom Treaty).
Since the task was to tackle the consequences for employment of the application of a common market and of the principles of freedom of movement and establishment, the Treaty of Rome (EEC) foresaw a common vocational training policy (Article 128).
There was no reference to education. At that time, the Member States did not want the Community to intervene in this area, which is bound up with the development of national sovereignty. The subject was taboo at Community level. The many years of negotiation (from 1955 to 1972) that were needed in order to set up a European university (The European University Institute in Florence) show the extreme sensitivity that there was at the time about the idea of extending Community action to cover this area.
Since they could not build the “Europe of their dreams” --- one which would also have incorporated, or even given priority to, culture and education --- the founding fathers of the European Community built the “Europe that was possible”, a Europe that focused on the economy. It was felt at that time that the Council of Europe, the first European political and parliamentary cooperation body, which was set up in 1949, which was intergovernmental in nature, was the right forum for meeting the needs for cooperation on education and culture between the Member States.
However, it is worth noting that the Western European Union (WEU) supported university cooperation at a very early stage and transferred its activities in this area to the Council of Europe in 1960.
And yet, the Treaty of Rome already contained the seeds of future Community involvement in education, which were subsequently to arouse the interest of the players concerned and to lead to favourable comments from the Court of Justice.
Indeed, how would it be possible to create “an ever closer Union among the peoples of Europe” (preamble to the treaty), “promote improved working conditions and an improved standard of living” (Article 117), promote cooperation relating to “basic and advanced vocational training” (Article 118), guarantee freedom of movement, non-discrimination and “the mutual recognition of diplomas, certificates and other evidence of formal qualifications” (Article 57) while completely ignoring the role of education? The Council Decision of 2 April 1963 laying down general principles for implementing a common vocational training policy (Article 128 of the treaty) already broached the topic of the link between vocational training and general education.
2. 1969-84: the founding years of cooperation
The situation changed gradually towards the end of the 1960s. The field of education went through expansion and democratisation in many parts of Europe, higher education experienced a period of ferment and reform, and the vision of a European Community concerned primarily with traders and farmers began to be considered to be no longer fully satisfactory. There were calls for the area of education to be taken into account as a necessary addition to Community action in economic and social matters and, in particular, as requested by the European Parliament in October 1969, for the Europeanisation of universities as the foundation for a genuine cultural community. The European summit meeting in The Hague in December of that year (1969) stressed the importance of preserving an exceptional centre of development, progress and culture in Europe and of ensuring that young people were closely involved in it. The French Minister for Education, Olivier Guichard, made a clear call for cooperation between ministers at Community level and proposed the creation of a European centre for the development of education, but this came to nothing.
Initially, however, there was no consensus about the form that such cooperation should take. Should it be intergovernmental cooperation at Community level (as proposed by Minister Guichard) or cooperation fully integrated into the Community framework? The former approach would reassure the most sensitive Member States but would run the risk of being ineffective. There would be considerable reticence about the latter, but it would have great potential for the future because it would offer, in particular, the advantage of clearly linking cooperation on education to the developing Community and of allowing it to draw closer to its citizens. The task and challenge at that time were to draw up a totally new model of cooperation at Community level, taking account of both the sensitivity of the area for the Member States and of the need to establish cooperation that was capable of adding value to the development of the Community.
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The first 10 years of the implementation of the action programme on education (1976-84) were an important stage in the history of Community cooperation on education, despite the legal difficulties and very modest resources. They engendered an original form of cooperation within the Community framework, which, in a way, was the first application of the principle of subsidiarity before it was defined and the first demonstration that it was possible, in a Community that was on the path to integration, to cooperate in areas that were fundamental to the structure of nation states while fully respecting the diversity of national situations and the powers of Member States. These years created the essential conditions for more significant subsequent progress, since, through the first measures that were conducted, the process was launched, carrying with it not only policy-makers, but also increasingly mobilised circles of associations and a growing number of players on the ground that were keen to see Europe become involved.
When this first action programme was adopted, vocational training had a head start, thanks to the legal basis that it enjoyed in the Treaty of Rome. In 1963, the Council adopted a decision laying down 10 general principles for the development of a common policy. This decision already mentioned the necessary relationship between vocational training and general education. However, the principles that it underlined were not likely to lead to major specific measures. The Advisory Committee on Vocational Training (ACVT), which was set up in 1963, provided a forum for close cooperation with the social partners in drafting opinions to support the development of cooperation in this area. It was not until 1971 that the broad outline of an action programme on vocational training was finally adopted. This was actually also the year when ministers for education met for the first time at Community level. The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (Cedefop), a quadripartite body, was set up in 1975 on the basis of the first social action programme adopted by the Council in 1974. As in the case of education, the context, which was shaped by the consequences of the two oil crises in the 1970s, became increasingly conducive to greater cooperation between countries in this area. These crises and rising unemployment, particularly among young people, helped to raise the profile of the Community’s economic and social action, and hence of the role that not only vocational training systems but also education systems could play in the search for solutions.
3. 1985-92: launch of the major programmes and the path towards recognition in the treaty
An important milestone was passed in the second half of the 1980s, with the launch of programmes in the field of education and training that were diversified and increasingly large in scale. Comett was the first, followed by Erasmus, PETRA, “Youth for Europe”, Lingua, Eurotecnet and FORCE. They changed the scale of cooperation and its potential for acceptance in the various Member States.
They owed their existence to two major factors: firstly, a Community climate that was increasingly favourable to measures close to the citizens (political union was on the way to being relaunched; the European Council of Milan in 1985 approved the Adonnino report on the “people’s Europe”, which underlined the role of education and culture; the social dialogue was relaunched; the Single European Act was adopted and the creation of the single market was under way; the emphasis was placed on freedom of movement for persons and on the importance of human resources in economic success and social cohesion in the Community); secondly, by its broad interpretation of the treaty, the Court of Justice brought higher education within the scope of the treaty in 1985 (Article 128 on vocational training) and allowed the Commission to table legal acts with greater scope in these areas.
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With these programmes adopted on the basis of Council decisions and accompanied by budgets out of all proportion to those available for the implementation of the first action programme , cooperation on education, but also on initial and continuing vocational training, accelerated. Mobility, transnational partnerships and networks in key sectors for the development of the Union’s human resources (cooperation between universities and enterprises; student mobility and cooperation between universities; initial training of young people; continuing vocational training; development of foreign-language learning; actions for youth) were their main features. Their strength lay in the fact that they were implemented at the closest possible level to the education and training players on the ground and were effective catalysts and multipliers of the European dimension in education and training. Since they were hotbeds of transnational innovation and experimentation in Europe, they were increasingly cited as an example of what the Community could best do for its citizens in response to their expectations of a Europe closer to their needs. Their experience in an initial phase of implementation that was to last until 1994 was precious when, following the historic events of 1989 in central and eastern Europe, the Commission proposed the Tempus programme of assistance in the development and reform of higher education in the countries concerned, which were later to join the Union.
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However, the first programmes, which were focused on higher education and vocational training, did not cover all the areas of cooperation. Actions continued to be developed outside the scope of the programmes, especially in the area of school education, in the second half of the 1980s, in order to promote the European dimension in education systems (the same applied to higher education with the launch of the Jean Monnet action in 1990), but also in the area of equal opportunities. The crucial issue of the recognition of diplomas for professional purposes (necessary for the establishment of a genuine European employment market) was also given a major boost with the establishment, following the European Council of Fontainebleau in 1984, of a more flexible system based on two directives that fundamentally changed the approach in this area. A system based on the harmonisation of training was replaced by a system based on mutual trust and the comparability of training. Academic recognition of diplomas and periods of study (which was crucial for facilitating the mobility of students and teachers) also underwent major changes thanks to the incorporation into the Erasmus programme of an initially experimental system of transfer of credits (ECTS) that made it possible for the university of origin to recognise the period of study completed in an establishment in another Member State. This system subsequently expanded under the Socrates programme and became a key reference instrument for the implementation of the Bologna process.
In 1992, education finally gained the status it deserved by being incorporated into the Maastricht Treaty (Article 126). This did not happen by chance. It was the result of the many years of work and mobilisation of the players at all levels, following the adoption of the resolution in 1976, and of the political will to clarify, after years of legal ‘disputes’, an area whose link with the Union’s objectives was now recognised and established. It was a major symbolic achievement that strengthened the citizenship dimension of European integration (culture was also included for the first time, along with public health), but the scope of Community action was now defined very precisely. The terms of the treaty reflected the cooperation that had prevailed until then, which meant that the action of the Community was intended to support and supplement the action of the Member States. Such action fully respected the responsibility of the Member States for the content of education, the organisation of education systems and cultural and linguistic diversity. All harmonisation was ruled out. The inclusion of school education as well was a major step forward. The fact that the Court of Justice broadly interpreted the concept of ‘vocational training’ under Article 128 of the Treaty of Rome also led the Member States to clarify the terms of their cooperation in this area (Article 127). There was no longer any talk of a ‘common policy’, which was replaced by a Community vocational training policy designed to support and supplement the action of the Member States, while fully respecting the responsibility of the Member States for the content and organisation of systems, as in the case of education.
The Maastricht Treaty made the European Parliament joint decision-maker on future measures in the area of education, on an equal footing with the Council. This was a major democratic step forward, which had an impact on the negotiation of future programmes and their budgetary funding, since Parliament had always actively supported the development of Community cooperation on education and training.
In addition, a second advisory institution was set up “the Committee of the Regions” alongside the European Economic and Social Committee that had been set up in 1957 by the Treaty of Rome. Given the role of the regions in the development of education and training, this new body meant that this area was supported and represented to a greater degree at Community level.
4. 1993-99: rise of the concepts of the knowledge-based society and streamlining of the programmes
From 1993 onwards, the first year in which the single market was implemented, cooperation on education and training entered a new phase. An important milestone had just been reached with the incorporation of education into the Maastricht Treaty the year before. However, the newly established Union was already faced with new challenges, which meant that it had to prepare for far-reaching changes. The first challenge was internal in nature and unprecedented in scope. It was to prepare for what was the largest enlargement in the history of the Community, but also the most symbolic, because it involved the reunification of the continent. The second challenge, which was no less important, was the rise of globalisation and the development of the information society. In the 1990s, the concepts of “knowledge-based society” and “lifelong learning” became ever more prominent in speeches. These years of reflection on these new challenges facing the education and training systems prepared the ground for the European Council of Lisbon in March 2000.
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Another priority of the 1990s was to strengthen and improve the diversified programmes set up in the second half of the 1980s because they were due to end in 1994. They were consolidated in two stages. The first, covering the period from 1995 to 1999, was more quantitative than qualitative. The six existing programmes were merged into two large programmes (Socrates for education and Leonardo da Vinci for vocational training), which retained, especially in the case of Socrates, the mark of the former measures. However, they included new measures, especially in the area of school education (Comenius), following the incorporation of this level of education into the treaty. Preparations for the second transformation began back in 1997 in order to renew Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci for the period 2000-06. This transformation sought to respond more effectively to the challenge of the knowledge-based Europe, to extend the scope of the measures (e.g. adult education through the new Grundtvig action), to move towards greater consistency between education and training and simplify the management of the actions, which was requested in successive evaluations. However, it was not until the fourth generation of programmes that was proposed by the Commission in 2004 (for 2007-13) that more significant progress on these issues could be envisaged. In the 1990s, the new programmes that were set up continued to be emblematic of cooperation between the Member States of the Union in the area of education and training (and in the area of youth policy). These were the first Community programmes to be opened up, back in 1997, to the countries of central and eastern Europe, Cyprus and Malta. It is not unimportant that it was through the programmes directly targeted at citizens that these countries developed their first forum for cooperation with the Union, which they were later to join.
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5. 2000-05: education and training at the heart of the economic and social strategy of the Union for 2010
The first five years of the new century were rich in major events for European integration. Firstly, the adoption in March 2000 of a new economic, social and environmental strategy for the Union up to 2010 (the Lisbon strategy), which put education and training at the forefront of work to achieve the Europe of knowledge, followed by enlargement of the Union in May 2004 to include 10 new Member States, symbolising the historic reunification of the continent and, finally, the adoption by the European Council, in June 2004, of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe, to replace all the existing treaties. These events made the context increasingly favourable for areas such as education and training that affect citizens’ lives directly. From then on, investment in human resources and knowledge was considered to be one of the essential conditions for guaranteeing the economic vitality and social cohesion of the Union. This acknowledgement was the result of a process of fine-tuning lasting several years, but also of external events (pressure of globalisation, technological development, sluggish growth, etc.), which, at the beginning of this century, required large-scale collective action. Looking ahead to enlargement, the measures to bring the peoples of Europe together also took on a new meaning. Finally, the drafting of a Constitution for Europe responded to the need to bring European integration closer to its citizens.
It was the strategy adopted in Lisbon in March 2000 which brought the greatest changes to cooperation in the area of education and training. For the first time, a single integrated framework for policy cooperation was adopted by the Education Council. The development of this framework created the conditions for the Commission to propose, in 2004, that the fourth generation of Community programmes (stretching from 2007 to 2013) should also reflect the integration of education and training measures through a single programme devoted to lifelong learning and the policy objectives established under the Lisbon strategy. This was also the background against which a new programme (Youth in action) was proposed for the area of youth policy. The six programmes (excluding Tempus) in the area of education and training at the end of the 1980s were reduced to two (one for each area) in the 1990s and, finally, in 2004, to one proposal for an integrated programme.
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At European level, the first years of implementation of the “Education and training 2010” work programme laid the foundations for cooperation through diversified working groups bringing together national experts and the partners concerned. Practices and experience on the common objectives adopted by ministers were exchanged; indicators for monitoring progress were defined, and European references for supporting national reforms (on key competences, teacher competences and qualifications, efficiency of investment, lifelong guidance, validation of non-formal and informal learning, quality assurance, mobility) were produced. Thanks to this work, it was possible to envisage the development in 2005/2006 of a European qualifications framework, an essential instrument for supporting genuine mobility and a genuine European employment market. However, as for the Lisbon strategy as a whole, the process continued to depend largely on the willingness and commitment of the Member States to take account, at national level, of the common objectives that they had fixed for themselves at European level. In its communication of November 2003, the Commission produced an initial evaluation report. The joint report of the Education Council and the Commission to the 2004 spring European Council kept the gist of it. The points made were the following: many reforms were conducted in all countries, but they were no match for the challenges faced; the Union continued to lag behind its main competitors on the international stage in the areas related to the knowledge-based society; the greater public and private investment required in human resources was not forthcoming. The Commission called on the Member States to accelerate the pace of reforms.
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6. Conclusion
Consequently, almost 30 years after the adoption of the first action programme, Community cooperation on education and training has finally been given a coherent, ongoing policy framework and an integrated action programme, both of them devoted to the major ambition of achieving a European area of lifelong learning.
