EDUCATION AND SKILLS
The report
Making Europe Nobel Laureate in Education
Pär NUDER - Sebastian DE TORO
"In the year 2000, the leaders of the European Union launched the goal that the EU ought to become the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. But,as we know today, this is not the case. At the opposite: Europe has lost ground over the last ten years. GDP has grown with less than 2 percent per year since the year 2000, and the employment rate in the EU27 was already in 2008, before the economic crisis, a meagre 66 percent.
One reason behind our poor performance in Europe is that our education system is not working well enough. The performance of our educational system is on average with other industrialised countries, but we are losing ground. In addition, there are important inequities within Europe, due to social, gender, economic and geographical background.
If we want to regain our competitive position, more investments in our people are needed. It should both be about volume, like more study places at higher education institutions and increased training for adults, and about quality, as a better organised primary education."
EDUCATION AND SKILLS
"Our progressive societies" - An initiative led by Pär Nuder, former Swedish Minister of Finance
Coordinated by Sebastian De Toro
With the support of [Arbetarrörelsens Tankesmedja]
Pär Nuder – former Minister of Finance in Sweden – has been appointed to lead a Social Democratic study on how Europe should face the challenges of globalization in regard to education.
The study, unveiled in December '09 during a fringe meeting of FEPS to the PES Congress in Prague, covers the entire education chain from pre-school to R&D, including life-long learning and vocational training. The authors have visited 12 countries and organised 8 seminars in European cities, and have met numerous scholars, politicians and representatives from NGOs and business. Researchers accross Europe have been hired to write reports on different parts of the educational chain.
[the project & the subreports]
Agenda
30 June '09
Ljubljana, Slovenia
Theme: Higher education
with the support of the CEE Network of Gender Studies
8 July '09
Madrid, Spain
Theme: Pre-school
with the support of the Fundación Ideas
4 September '09
Berlin, Germany
Theme: Uppper secondary education
with the support of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
16 September '09
Paris, France
Theme: Research and development
with the support of the Fondation Jean-Jaurès
9 October '09
Rome, Italy
Theme: Compulsory education
with the support of the Fondazione Italianieuropei
14 October '09
London, UK
Theme: Life-long learning
with the support of the Fabian Society
6 December '09
Prague, Czech Republic
Final conference @ PES Congress
Event
Seminar on higher education
Ljubljana, Slovenia | 30 June '09
Higher education is the jewel of the educational systems. However, today many of Europe’s best talents go to the US to study or later on to do research. This seminar, organised with the support of the CEE Network for Gender Issues, was the Slovenian step of the cycle of conferences organised in the frame of this research project. [+]
Event
Is Europe Worthy of a Nobel Prize in Education?
Stockholm, Sweden | 4 February '09
Skills and education are of great importance for prosperity and social cohesion, for individuals and societies as a whole. All over the world, policy-makers have realised this and invest heavily in education to boos their competitiveness. This poses a number questions for Europe : how are European countries performing? what needs to be done to improve Europe's competitiveness in regard to education? how should we make sure that investments in education maintain or improve social cohesion? [+]
