ESU expects Poland to make headway on higher education
BRUSSELS – On 1 July, the Polish will take over the rotating EU Presidency from Hungary. Although Warsaw is faced with several severe challenges such as the ongoing problems in the Eurozone, the European Students’ Union (ESU) is expecting a lot of work from the former communist state in the field of higher education. Allan Päll, ESU Chairperson-elect said: “Important discussions on the EU budget for higher education will be held under the Polish EU Presidency but they also have to lead the first discussions on the Modernisation Agenda of Higher Education.”
Whereas Budapest has been putting higher education on the backburner during, the Polish seem prepared to make some real progress. The Europe 2020 Strategy, containing two education benchmarks, will partially define the discussion context for Poland. In the autumn, the EU Education ministers will have a debate on the National Reform Programs from the member states which have the aim to implement the education benchmarks of the Europe 2020 Strategy.
During the Polish turn at the helm of the EU, the European Commission will propose several important higher education documents: one on the next generation of EU lifelong learning programmes (including the famous Erasmus programme), a New Mobility Programme, a paper is due on the EU’s Multilingual Policy and last but not least the Modernisation Agenda of Higher Education will be made public.
Presidency Plans
Concerning the Mobility plans, the Polish EU Presidency plans to advance work on developing competences (languages in particular) of youth and adults and to enhance educational and vocational mobility and to contribute to the discussion on the next generation of EU programmes.
The Polisch aim concerning the Modernisation Agenda of higher education is to suggest tools to respond to challenges such as global competition, demographic trends, widening participation in higher education and less-than-satisfactory employability of graduates. The Education Youth and Sports Council (EYSC) will take place on 28 and 29 November. The Polish EU Presidency will also organise a number of conferences and informal ministerial meetings on EU-wide education.–END–
Published: 30 June 2011
For more information, please contact:
Allan Päll, ESU Chairperson-elect: +32479591499 or allan@esu-online.org or Marianne Slegers, ESU Communications Manager: +32473669894 or marianne@esu-online.org
