New EU’s Education and Training 2020 (ET2020) working groups kick off today
For first time, the membership of the all the working groups is open by default to stakeholder organisations. The European Students’ Union has became member of the Working Group on the Modernization of Higher Education for the mandate January 2016 – June 2018.
“We are very happy to bring the voice of the students to this forum and support better education systems throughout Europe” says Fernando Galan, ESU chairperson and representative on the higher education working group. “Sadly, students and other types of learners will be represented only in one out of the six working groups as nor ESU or any other student/learner organisation have been selected for the other 5 working groups”, Fernando continues.
When Mr Tibor Navracsics opened the kick-off meeting of all Education and Training 2020 working groups of the European Commission, he mentioned that “Our education systems should be a reflection of the societies we want to have”.The strategic framework Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) is the main instrument to develop exchanges of information and experience on issues common to the education and training systems of the Member States. As part of the ET 2020 strategic framework, working groups are designed to help Member States address the key challenges of their education and training systems, as well as common priorities agreed at European level.
The primary focus of the ET 2020 Working Groups is to benefit the Member States in the work of furthering policy development through mutual learning and the identification of good practices, as well as understand what works in education. They are a forum for discussions, providing high-level input from a wide range of sources and stakeholders, and as such are also opened to European social partners and European-level stakeholder associations. These Groups are: WG on schools; WG on the Modernization of Higher Education; WG on vocational education and training; WG on adult learning; WG on digital skills and competences; and WG on Promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education.
