Education and Training 2010

"Education and Training 2010" was the name given by the European Commission to the activities it supports which pursue the agenda set out in the 2001 report of European Ministers of Education to the Spring 2001 European Council, and in their 2002 joint work programme with the Commission. It functions under the Open Method of Coordination and involves exchanges of experience and good practice, joint policy development, benchmarking and measurement of progress.

In the Communique following the Lisbon Spring Summit in March 2000, the Heads of State and Government of the European Union ear-marked a number of areas where they felt that improvements in education and training were needed, and asked the Ministers of Education to reflect together about the future of education systems and how they served citizens. "The European Council asks the Council (Education) to undertake a general reflection on the concrete future objectives of education systems, focusing on common concerns and priorities while respecting national diversity, with a view to ... presenting a broader report to the European Council in the Spring of 2001." (paragraph 27).

The Education Council in June 2000 asked the European Commission to prepare a draft of this report, following the Community method, and in January 2001 the draft was presented to the Council and the European Parliament. In this draft the Commission extended the concept of "education" in the original European Council conclusions to "education and training"; and this extension has remained in force ever since. The Commission's draft was accepted with few amendments and the Education Ministers adopted it for transmission to the European Council on 14 February 2001. The European Council met in on 23 and 24 March 2001, and in the light of the Council's document, asked the Council and Commiussion to report back to the Spring European Council 2002, a year later, giving "a detailed work programme on the follow-up of the objectives of education and training systems, including an assessment of their achievement in the framework of the open method of coordination and in a worldwide perspective; special attention must be given to ways and means of encouraging young people, especially women, in scientific and technical studies as well as ensuring the long-term recruitment of qualified teachers in these fields". The Commission presented a draft work programme in September 2001. This was considerably worked over and a revised version was adopted jointly by the Council and Commission on 14 February 2002. The European Council welcomed the Work Programme, asked the Ministers and the Commission to implement it, and to report back two years later. The Open Method of Coordination had found its place in Education and Training.

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