Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-01-15-Speech-1-082"
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"en.20010115.7.1-082"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we are only at the beginning of the new year and I believe that it is still appropriate to say to you and your families that I hope this year will see all your dreams come true. To everyone here at the European Parliament and the Commission, I hope that we continue to work on the same good terms as we have done in the past.
Ladies and gentlemen, together with the Ministers for Education, we are making these proposals on quality analysis to enable us to give this opportunity to all young people, because if they receive a high quality education then it is likely that they will be able to do well in society and be able to find a job.
That is why I would once again like to thank Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, the rapporteur, as well as the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport and all the Members who have assisted us in this work.
I would like to inform you that, following the Education Council’s move to make evaluation and quality a priority issue, action 6 of the Socrates programme has put out to tender within this very specific area. This will result in comparative studies being made and relevant institutions being networked.
I would also like to inform you that, at the beginning of April, the Swedish Presidency will be holding a conference at Karstadt and that the upcoming Belgian Presidency has already planned to work on this issue during its presidency. You will, therefore, have concluded, ladies and gentlemen, that this is not the last time that we shall be discussing this issue and that I shall be coming here on a regular basis to speak to you in detail about new and, hopefully, all positive, developments.
Today’s business is to examine the draft recommendation on quality evaluation of school education. This draft has already made good progress and had the full backing of the European Parliament. I would like to thank Parliament for its enormous support which was testimony to its political will to forge ahead, something that was, at times, difficult. Parliament made many positive suggestions which, over the years, have been put into practice in the field. I would particularly like to give sincere thanks to the rapporteur, Mrs Sanders-ten Holte, for the excellent work that she has carried out in extremely short time frames and I would also like to extend my thanks to everyone in the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education, the Media and Sport.
You have before you a draft recommendation which, as some of you have mentioned, relates to a key issue at the heart of our political priorities, to wit, can we guarantee improvements in the quality of school education and, if so, how do we go about it so that the European Union can give this a bit of a nudge in the right direction, without interfering in European systems which are, and remain, the responsibility of the national Ministers for Education?
You are aware that we have already made considerable progress towards this goal, since the launch of the major pilot project to evaluate the quality of school education took place at the beginning of the 1997 academic year. Over 100 secondary schools in 18 countries took part in this project. The draft recommendation is, to a great extent, based on the conclusions which we collectively drew from this research.
The recommendation relates to two crucial points. First of all, that of evaluation as an instrument to improve quality – the aim of which is not to establish who is top and who is bottom of the class, but rather simply to act as an incentive so that everyone ends up at the top of the class. Secondly, the role of European cooperation in this area. This is, moreover, something we know how to do very well, and we have demonstrated as much.
In this sense, the proposal encourages self-evaluation, external evaluation and urges all stakeholders to play a part in every aspect of the evaluation process so that, in the end, schools are inspired to learn from each other and can identify good practices and the most efficient tools for evaluation.
In this process, the Commission shall not prescribe any rules and is fulfilling its role as a catalyst. It is encouraging European cooperation between schools and enabling them to establish a Europe-wide network. It is trying to set up a database of tools and instruments to be used by schools in self-evaluation and which will then by available to all stakeholders involved.
That is precisely what the Lisbon European Council asked us to do. If we wish to place European society at the forefront of the world stage as an example of the knowledge society, then clearly, the extremely high quality of teaching in schools in every Member State, area and village should be the
for social equality amongst citizens. Mr Karas said that, in today’s schools, we are creating the society and the success of tomorrow’s society and I agree with this wholeheartedly. From this perspective, it is our responsibility to provide every available tool and to ensure that schools learn from each other, that the system improves everywhere and that no one is left by the wayside.
That is actually the goal of a knowledge society. We cannot afford ourselves the luxury of 20%, at the very least, of pupils being left by the wayside because they have not received the education they need to be able to do well in society. I agree with those of you who, on this point, said that you need to prepare for life in society before preparing for life on the employment market. Moreover, that is a considerable loss for a society that needs all its human resources in order to progress."@en1
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