OBESSU at a policy debate on Rethinking Education

On 26^th March MEP Katarina Nevedalova, the rapporteur for the opinion on Rethinking Education in the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) of the European Parliament, organised a Round Table on the Rethinking Education Communication at the European Parliament in Brussels.

Youth unemployment in the EU is currently almost 24%. Effective, accessible and quality education has been identified by all the educational stakeholders as a key tool in solving this critical situation. However, we must raise a question – what is effective, accessible and quality education?

The European Commission tried to answer this question with the Rethinking Education Communication: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes. OBESSU however believes that in this document, the Commission fails to recognise education as a human right, answering to the different learners’ needs, and leaving space for personal development and fulfilment. The Commission’s document, instead, focuses mainly on the idea of education as producer of workforce, responding solely to labour market needs. Furthermore, we believe that school students should have a fundamental role in tailoring guidelines for effective, accessible and quality education, which is why we lobbied our way in on a policy debate at the European Parliament where the rapporteur of the CULT Committee organised a discussion with different educational stakeholders in order to collect their opinions for the Committee’s report on Rethinking Education.

Stakeholders present at the round table

• OBESSU
• The Education, Youth and Culture (EYC) Council
• European Economic and Social Committee
• EDUC,  the Committee of the Regions
• Committee for Employment and Social Affairs at the European Parliament
• EUCIS-LLL
• European Youth Forum
• European Association for the Education of Adults
• European Students Union (ESU)
• European Trade Union Committee for Education (ETUCE)
• BUSINESSEUROPE
• Federation of European Publishers
• HYUNDAI
• Google
• Junior Achievement Young Enterprise (JA-YE) Europe
• European Forum of Technical and Vocational Education and Training
• CEDEFOP

Each stakeholder presented their stance on Rethinking Education and OBESSU Board member Dejan Bojanic was there to remind how alarming it is to put forward the strategy which only aims to create the new Ford Model T’s – this time instead of identical black cars, to have young people being trained to solely answer to labour market needs and be ready to use by the business sector, neglecting their personal needs, preferences and talents. Furthermore, we advocated for a stronger focus of the European Commission on three set of skills and competences:

• Those that young people find relevant for their personal development;
• Transversal competences, critical thinking, problem solving and entrepreneurial skills;
• Skills and competences acquired outside of formal education, e.g. through non-formal education, involvement in youth work or volunteering.

All the inputs were recorded by the rapporteur from the CULT Committee. We urge the European Parliament and especially the members who are in the Committee on Culture and Education to recognize the importance of involvement of learners’ representatives in developing educational policies and to truly commit to increase the knowledge, skills, abilities and social competences of European citizens by valuing opinions of European school students.

Written by Dejan Bojanic

Timetable for the report of the Committee on Culture and Education on Rethinking Education:

• 22^nd – 23^rd April               First verbal exchange of views
• 22^nd May                          Draft report
• 17^th – 18^th June               Presentation of the draft report
• To be confirmed               Deadline for amendments
• 16^th – 17^th September     Vote and adoption in the CULT committee
• October                            Vote in the plenary session

OBESSU reaction to Rethinking Education Communication  Video from the roundtable