EU education policy overhaul planned

Date: 14/05/1998

By Myles Neligan

THE European Commission will next week unveil its strategy to promote education and training once the present set of EU programmes expires in December next year.

The new-look education and training initiative, scheduled for 2000, is intended to respond to the pressures of Union enlargement and the changing needs of students and trainees.

"The educational and training landscape has changed dramatically since we introduced the present set of initiatives in 1995. The current programmes have been very successful, but need to be adapted to the new circumstances," said a Commission spokesman.

The main factors prompting the overhaul are an anticipated explosion of interest in EU education schemes from the applicant countries of central and eastern Europe, and a widespread re-evaluation of training policy at national level during the unemployment crisis of the early to mid-1990s.

The existing Socrates and Leonardo programmes, which deal with education and training respectively, will be consolidated and streamlined.