Educational policies

and initiatives of the

European Union

 In the European Union education is the

responsibility of Member States;

European Union institutions play a
supporting role

 According to Art. 165 of the Treaty on the

Functioning of the European Union, the

Community shall contribute to the development
of quality education by encouraging cooperation
between Member States,through actions such
as promoting the mobility of citizens, designing
joint study programmes, establishing networks,
exchanging information or teaching languages
of the European Union. The Treaty also
contains a commitment to promote life-long
learning for all citizens of the Union.

 The EU also funds educational, vocational and

citizenship-building programmes which

encourage EU citizens to take advantage of
opportunities which the EU offers its citizens to
live, study and work in other countries. The best
known of these is the Erasmus programme,
under which more than 2,000,000 students
have taken part in inter-university exchange and
mobility over the last 20 years.

 The European Union adopted its first education

programme (the COMETT programme, designed to

stimulate contacts and exchanges between universities
and industry) in July 1987. This programme was rapidly
followed by the ERASMUS programme, which promoted
inter-university contacts and cooperation, as well as
substantial student mobility (as, in 1989, did the "Youth
for Europe" programme, the EU's first youth exchange
support scheme). These programmes were adopted by
the EU countries but with considerable support from the
European Parliament which made budgets available
even before the legal instruments had been adopted.

 The European Union has two different types of

instrument to increase the quality and openness

of the education and training systems of the
EU's Member States: a set of policy instruments
through which EU countries are encouraged to
develop their own education systems and to
learn from each other's successes; and a
substantial programme to support exchanges,
networks and mutual learning between schools,
universities or training centres as well as
between the political authorities responsible for
these areas in the different Member States.

 The Commission seeks to encourage

Member States to improve the quality of

their education and training systems in
two main ways: through a process of
setting targets and publishing the
position of Member States in achieving
them and by stimulating debate on
subjects of common interest. This is
done using the process known as the
Open Method of Coordination

 not more than 10% of school pupils should leave school before

the end of compulsory schooling

the numbers of Maths, Science and Technology university
graduates should increase by at least 15%, and the proportion
of girls within that number should also increase
at least 85% of 22-year olds should have completed upper
secondary education
the percentage of low-achieving 15-year olds in reading literacy,
as measured at level 1 in the OECD's Programme for
International Student Assessment should have decreased by at
least 20% compared to the year 2000
participation of the 25-64 age group in lifelong learning (i.e.,
continuing education or training including in-company skills
development) should be not less than 12.5% per annum.

Education and training

programmes
INSIDE THE EU
The first European Union exchange programmes were

the COMETT Programme for Industry-University links

and exchanges, launched in 1987 (and discontinued in
1995); the Erasmus university exchange programme was
launched in the same year. Similar programmes have
been running ever since, and as from 2007 all the
education and training programmes were brought
together in one single programme; the Lifelong Learning
Programme 2007-2013.[11] The Lifelong Learning
programme comprises separate sub-programmes for
schools; universities and higher education; vocational
education and training; adult education; teaching about
the EU in universities; and a 'horizontal' programme for
policy development.

 OUTSIDE THE EU
the first EU programme to promote

educational exchange and cooperation

between educational institutions inside
the EU and those outside it was the
Tempus programme, adopted on 7 May
1990 by the Council as part of the
assistance provided by the European
Community of the day to the countries
breaking free of Soviet rule.

 The idea behind Tempus was that individual universities

in the European Community could contribute to the

process of rebuilding free and effective university
systems in partner countries; and that a bottom-up
process through partnerships with individual universities
in these countries would provide a counterweight to the
influence of the much less trusted Ministries, few of which
had by then undergone serious change since Soviet
domination. The programme was an immediate success;
and by 1993 the number of participating countries had
grown from five at the start to eleven. The programme
was subsequently enlarged to include the Newly
Independent States of the former Soviet Union; again to
include the countries of the Western Balkans; and finally
to cover the Mediterranean countries

 Tempus was followed by a series of smaller programmes

built more round the mobility of academics towards the

EU. These included the ALFA/ALBAN programmes with
Latin American universities;[15] the Asia-Link
programme;[16] and others, sometimes time-limited. A
number of these appear to have been set up as a means
of development assistance rather than with the
development of universities as such, an impression
strengthened by the fact that they were managed by the
European Commission's development assistance service
EuropeAid rather than (like Tempus or Erasmus Mundus
programme)by its Education and Culture department.