/ Ευρωπαϊκής Ένωσης

EU Ministers for Education in Uppsala discussed basic skills and IT proficiency

Date: 03/03/2001
Policy area: Education and youth affairs
News item: Press release

Subjects discussed by the EU Ministers for Education today included training in basic skills such as reading, writing and arithmetic; lifelong learning; IT proficiency; and the fundamental knowledge needed for everyday life.
Minister for Schools and Adult Education Ingegerd Wδrnersson chaired the meeting and summarised the discussion.

She referred to the summit meeting in Stockholm in three weeks time, which is to follow up the strategic goals for the Union?s work that were set out at the Lisbon summit last year. Education and professional training will be priority issues at the Stockholm meeting too. Today, many of the Ministers for Education emphasised the importance of following up the initiatives launched by the European Council in Lisbon regarding fundamental IT proficiency and the new so-called basic skills.

Here, the countries should make full use of the existing programmes and funds at national and European levels.

It is also essential to develop work on validation and transparency concerning the kind of skills discussed by the ministers today. It should be possible to present the progress of the work on these issues in a report to be delivered by the Council of Ministers for Education to the meeting of the European Council in Barcelona in the spring of 2002.

?We should then be able to state that the Council of Ministers for Education has been given the role of coordinator of the various educational elements in the Lisbon strategy, and that educational issues have received considerable attention in the development towards a better labour market as proposed by the Commission?, said Ingegerd Wδrnersson in her summary.