Europa pleit tegen bezuinigingen
In een evaluatierapportage over de onderwijsdoelstellingen steltde Commissie vast, dat “EU countries have improved their educationsystems in key areas over the past decade but they have achievedonly one out of five benchmarks set for 2010.” Gelukt is depromotie van bèta-tech opleidingen en de deelname daaraan.” The EUhas succeeded in its target to increase the number of maths,science and technology graduates, with a 37% rise since 2000 -easily outstripping the target of 15%.”
Dropout te weinig omlaag
Op de andere punten ging het vooruit, maar niet genoeg.”Significant, but insufficient progress was made on reducing theschool drop-out rate, increasing the number of pupils completingupper secondary education, improving reading literacy skills andincreasing the share of adults participating in education ortraining. The Europe 2020 jobs and growth strategy retains thetarget of reducing the school drop-out rate to under 10%, as wellas increasing the share of graduates to at least 40%.”
Androulla Vassiliou geeft van deze uitkomsten de volgendeanalyse: “The good news is that education levels in Europe haverisen considerably. More young people complete secondary educationand graduate from higher education compared to ten years ago. Butearly school leaving continues to be a problem that affects one inseven young people in the European Union and one in five pupilsstill have poor reading skills at the age of 15. That is whyeducation and training are among the core objectives of Europe2020. We need further efforts from Member States to reach our jointEuropean targets.”
Betaalt zichzelf terug
De lidstaten van de EU moeten vooral niet snijden in hunonderwijsuitgaven, is haar conclusie, bij alle begrip voor debudgettaire beperkingen in crisistijden. “Spending on education isa good investment for jobs and economic growth and in the long termpays for itself. But in times of budgetary pressures we also haveto ensure that resources are used as efficiently as possible.”
In its annual
Key results
–2020 benchmarks: although it is tooearly for precise projections, past trends suggest that most of thebenchmarks for 2020 should be attainable if Member States continueto give them high priority and invest efficiently in education andtraining. This is true, in particular, for the two educationheadline targets on early school leaving and graduates.
–2010 benchmarks: EU countries havemade progress but only achieved the target on the number ofgraduates in maths, science and technology. (Full data for 2010will be available early next year).
–Participation and attainment: since2000, overall participation in education has increased as well asthe qualification levels of adults. The share of children inpre-primary education has risen as well.
–Gender gaps remain significantboth in performance and in choice of subjects. For instance, girlsoutperform boys in reading, and boys account for most early schoolleavers. Men outnumber women among graduates in maths, science andtechnology subjects.
