Delors doet voorzet voor beroepsonderwijs
Zijn betoog bevat enkele scherpe observaties en sluit aan bij in de praktijk werkende voorbeelden van een dergelijke aanpak: “What Europe has proven capable of doing in the past for its future university graduates with the Erasmus programme, it can and must do again today for its less qualified young people, who are inevitably the ones worst hit by unemployment. Mobility can be a lever for action in favour of qualification and of access to jobs for young people. The success which has greeted Germany’s “MobiPro EU” support to young Europeans wishing to commit to vocational training in Germany – is proof (on a small and excessively bilateral scale) that mobility works.”
Erasmus Pro
Met een reeks andere Europese denkers en staatslieden legt Delors – u leest zijn interview met ScienceGuide over de toekomst van Europa en onderwijsprioriteiten hier – daarom een voorstel op tafel. Het zou voor het Nederlandse EU-voorzitterschap en de MBO-conferentie, die daarin wordt gehouden in februari, eigenlijk een must moeten zijn.
“We propose that Europe’s leaders urgently put togethera new professional mobility programme – Erasmus Pro – to allow one million young Europeans to gain a professional qualification in a different European country by 2020. The young people involved will be taken in by a training centre and a business in the host country for a period stretching from two to three years, with ongoing support from their regions of origin.”
Extremely ambitious
“The Erasmus Pro programme must be extremely ambitious in its aims if it is to trigger a mobilising effect in young people and businesses and if it is to have an impact on youth unemployment in Europe. Having 200,000 new “young European apprentices” a year is indeed an ambitious goal, yet it lies within the member states’ grasp if we consider both the vacant apprenticeships available today and the potential for creating new posts. Over and above the scheme’s potential for boosting the offer in countries facing a labour shortage, hundreds of thousands of new posts will be created every year between now and 2020 in countries currently developing their apprenticeship systems.
Of course, thanks to a sub-section of its Erasmus + programme, the EU already offers young European apprentices the chance to complete part of their training abroad. This initiative will undoubtedly prove useful once all of the countries have a quality apprenticeship system in place, but unfortunately that is not the case today. The countries most badly hit by unemployment are also those that are lagging behind the most in precisely this sphere, which accounts for the very limited impact that this sub-section of the programme has had to date.”
