Legal Eye: The EU and education

"The Community shall contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their actions, while fully respecting the responsibilities of the Member States for the content of teaching and the organisation of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity" - Art. 150, EU Treaty

 

Pay special attention to the wording "while fully respecting the responsibilities of the member states." Education not only falls within the exclusive domain of each member state, but is also the exclusive responsibility of each member state. The role played by the EU is limited to "supporting and supplementing" the education policy of each member state.

In other words, EU law does not apply to the curriculum taught in Polish schools. EU law and policy have a role to play in education, albeit more from the perspective of offering support and promoting cooperation among the member states.

2010 targets

As part of the Lisbon Agenda, member states agreed in 2002 to work toward the common achievement of several education goals, commonly referred to as the Education and Training 2010 Work Programme, by 2010. The common goals include making education and vocational training more accessible, setting a minimum skill set for young people, modernizing both the educational and vocational systems, promoting efficiency in education and making lifelong learning a reality.

In order to achieve each goal the EU has established and funded several programs to assist the member states in their efforts to achieve specific benchmarks by 2010. For instance, in an effort to promote lifelong learning, each member state is tasked with reducing the drop-out rate among students to no more than 10 percent of their overall student population. Moreover, member states have committed themselves to increasing the number of graduates with mathematics, hi-tech and science degrees by 15 percent.

Additionally, member states have obligated themselves to budget not less than two percent of GDP to modernizing higher education facilities and systems. Unfortunately, Poland does not come close to satisfying this last benchmark.

EU funding

Funding, amounting to more than €7 (zł.25.3) billion between 2007 and 2013, has been earmarked by the EU to help member states achieve the goals laid out in the Education and Training 2010 Work Programme. Apportioned among several programs, funds are available to: (1) provide vocational training to at least 80,000 students on an annual basis; (2) underwrite student exchange programs among member states; (3) encourage joint-education projects between schools to include at least three million students; (4) create adult education programs, with a special emphasis on transnational partnerships; and (5) expand foreign language and e-learning opportunities. The EU also funds specific vocational and learning facilities, including the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training, located in Thessaloniki, Greece, and the soon-to-beopened European Institute of Technology, which will have an initial budget of €300 (zł.1,085) million through 2013.

Common degrees?

In order to facilitate the movement of workers within the bloc, the EU has developed a set of model education forms to document a student's educational achievements, whether in higher education or vocational training. Known as Europass documents, these documents are intended to evidence a student's learning achievements in a form accepted throughout the EU.

At present the EU is negotiating with several countries outside of the EU to reach agreement on the common recognition of educational achievements and vocational skills in order to create a European Higher Education Area by 2010.

Paul Fogo is a senior attorney with Miller Canfield W. Babicki, A. Chelchowski & Partners. fogo@pl.millercanfield.com