Building a future for young people; The role of education and training Jens Bjornavold

1. Building a future for young people; The role of education and training Jens Bjornavold European Parliament 10 June 2010

2. EUROPE’S youth feel the pinch of the crisis • In a Europe where the proportion of • young people is decreasing • 20.6% of young people under 25 (EU 27); • registered as unemployed in April 2010; • amounts to 5.5 million; • an increase of 1.5 million since March 2008. • Spain and the Baltic countries 30-40% youth • unemployment; • Germany, Austria and the Netherlands • between 7 and 11%; • average unemployment for 25-74 year olds, • 7.9%

3. Demand for and supply of education, training and qualifications • Expected demand • The demand for highly qualified employees expected to rise from 29% to 35% (+16 million); • The demand for medium level qualifications is expected to stabilise at around 50%; • The demand for low qualified expected to drop from 20% to 15% (- 12 million) • Expected supply • High level qualifications expected to increase (+ 16 million), medium level qualifications to remain stable and low level qualifications to drop signifixcantly (- 15 million) • Cedefop skills forecast, expected demand 2020

4. Countering recession through education, training and learning; short-term measures • Short-term measures taken in EU countries 2008-2010 - Keep people at work, offer better training: • provide funding for employers to take on young people; • provide training subsidies to employers to retain employees; • schemes for short-term work accompanied by training; • schemes for part time work alternating with training; • subsidies to allow employees to train at workplace; • open up formal education and training to groups at risk; • new partnerships between sectors and regional and national authorities as well as between Vet providers and enterprises; • lowering fees to education and training; • information campaigns, intensified guidance and counselling.

5. Countering recession through education, training and learning; • long-term measures • Current levels of funding are not sustainable and there’s a need to re-consider our education, training and learning strategies: • Need more targeted education and training; • Need to promote and value a broader range of • knowledge, skills and competences; • Need to reduce knowledge and skills mismatch; • Need new learning environments; • Need to open up education and training structures and • institutions; • Need to take into account individual needs.

6. Need more targeted education and training • Dangerous to pursue a education and training policy where the number/proportion of students going to tertiary education is used as indicator for success; • The profile of education and training is as important as the level • 50% of skills demand/supply is related to medium level qualifications, predominantly in the vocational field, this proportion not set to change; • We can observe serious imbalances in some European countries where the medium level vocational qualifications are missing. • Those countries with the strongest vocational qualifications systems (Denmark, Germany, Austria and Netherlands those with lowest youth unemployment)

7. Need to promote and value a broader range of knowledge, skills and competences • Education and training is not only about theoretical knowledge, it is also about practical skills, about the ability to apply knowledge and skills in an autonomous and responsible way, and it is about attitudes. • This challenges the existing education and training • standards, curricula and teaching methods • This shows the limitation of teaching in classrooms • and underlines the importance of practise based • learning • This requires that we are willing and able to recognise • learning outside schools (during leisure time and at work).

8. Need to reduce knowledge and skills mismatch; • Despite rising unemployment, there were 4 million vacancies in the EU in 2008. • Need to improve skills forecasting • Need to improve the dialogue between education and training • providers and employers at all level • Need to reduce barriers between employments services, • guidance services and education and training institutions; • Need to put in place high quality and accessible methods for • identification and validation of knowledge and skills • An initiative at EU level to create a new European standard for description of skills and competences (ESCO) – can improve matching techniques

9. Need new learning environments; Drop out from education and training is still an important problem in the EU and has not been significantly reduced in the period 2000-2010. Need a discussion on the combination of learning at school and at work at all levels of education and training. For young people it is important to get the opportunity to apply knowledge and skills outside the classroom in the real world. A new education, training and learning strategy will require partnerships between the public and private sector, between schools and enterprises and at local, regional, national and European level

10. Need to open up education and training structures and institutions. Sometimes education and training structures constitute an obstacle to learning, distinguishing strictly between insiders and outsiders. Denmark has formulated an education and training strategy where the main principle is that everybody, irrespective of age, level or previous qualification, should be able to find a way to make progress – dead-ends should be removed. The new European Qualifications framework, and the National Qualifications Frameworks being set up in response, addresses this issue by articulating how qualifications are linked horizontally and vertically

11. Need to take into account individual needs • Must be possible to identify and validate knowledge skills • and competences • Must be possible to have access to guidance and counselling • A transparent education, training and qualifications system is • a must • Modularised and/or unit based education and training • systems should be available/considered • Second chance education and training must be available • Individual pathways and progress must increasingly be • considered • This is not necessarily about increased funding but about changing perspectives, structure and a rethinking of how facilitate learning and make use of learning outcomes