Tag: Education

The EU’s top education official, Androulla Vassiliou, has called for a revamped Erasmus student exchange programme to place more emphasis on youth employability in the coming years, as the European Commission reveals a record 253,000 students took part in the programme last year.

Europe's unemployment crisis has had the worst impact on people who failed to complete secondary school education, regardless of age, says a new report on education around the world.

High unemployment, particularly among young Europeans, demands policy responses. Andrew McCoshan explains why care needs to be taken in transposing one country’s success to others less advanced.

Denmark, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Finland and Sweden have already met or even exceeded their 2020 national targets on boosting university education, defined three years ago at EU level to enhance the bloc’s labour force and ability to compete against global economic rivals.

Schools in Europe will be able to benchmark their students’ proficiency in reading, maths and science against the world’s top education systems using a new tool being administered by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

The case of Malala Giousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who the Taliban tried to kill for promoting girls' education, is just one example of the unacceptable inequality and brutal repression faced by women and girls on a daily basis in some countries, writes Androulla Vassiliou.

UNESCO increasingly counts on partnerships with the private sector to help fund projects, Director General Irina Bokova tells EurActiv. She identified Microsoft, Google, Nokia, Ericsson for being “very open to innovative methods of cooperation”. 

Young people without a job will be guaranteed the offer of employment, training or further education under a new decision agreed yesterday (28 February) by EU national ministers.

SPECIAL REPORT / EU education ministers met in Brussels last Friday to debate how new online tools can benefit the unemployed, with a specific focus on struggling Mediterranean countries. Meanwhile, a new initiative, the Academy Cube, seeks to bring together all stakeholders on one online platform to retrain unemployed people with e-skills for future ICT jobs.

Education experts and lawmakers gathered this week in Brussels at the invitation of US software giant Microsoft to debate the role that information and communication technologies (ICT) should play in education.

A deal on the 2013 budget, voted by the European Parliament yesterday (12 December), plugs a hole in the EU's finances for 2012 and removes uncertainty about funding for the Erasmus student exchange programme next year, the European Commission said.

Members of the European Parliament fear the EU’s Erasmus grant could be at risk, eyeing an extended budget for one of the world’s most successful student exchange programmes.

An increasing number of students are taught foreign languages in European schools, according to a new report.

More and more Spaniards are enrolling in German language courses, seen as a way for them – and their money – to get out of their country's failing economy. 

Following last month’s Bologna Process Ministerial Conference, Professor Helena Nazaré writes that expenditure in higher education should be deemed an investment rather than a cost, and exhorts governments not to ignore higher education as a by-product of the wider financial crisis.

European schools must teach students to become more entrepreneurial and develop a positive attitude towards risk-taking, EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

European schools must teach students to become more entrepreneurial and develop a positive attitude towards risk-taking, EU Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou said in an exclusive interview with EurActiv.

Young Europeans are getting fewer degrees in computer science, according to statistics released a week after a policy expert warned the European Commission that regulators are not keeping up with the pace of technological change.

Despite the current gloom and doom, Europe has many reason for optimism and the cultural sector is a reservoir of hope, ideas and new economic growth, write Uffe Elbæk, Danish Minister for Culture, and Androulla Vassiliou, EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.

The Erasmus progamme which allows thousands of students to spend time studying in other EU countries, could not be launched today, said the father of the initiative, Domenico Lenarduzzi, in an interview with EurActiv.

The Erasmus progamme, which allows thousands of students every year to study in other EU countries, could not be launched today, said the founder of the initiative, Domenico Lenarduzzi, in an interview with EurActiv.

European students want businessmen to get more heavily involved in university education rather than reserving their voluntary teaching for high schools.

Helping young people to become entrepreneurs starts at school, where companies have a role to play in coaching students to get the skills required to succeed and compete in the world economy, argues Brian Ager, secretary-general of the European Roundtable of Industrialists (ERT), in an interview with EurActiv.