Another step toward a European Education Area: A new informative website on pupils’ mobility
Learning mobility is one of the key policy priorities promoted by the EU. It is a fundamental pre-requisite for the development of competences crucial for active participation in society and in the labour market. For this reason, Ministries of Education of EU countries have committed to ensure that by 2025 all pupils in Europe will also be able to spend a study period abroad.
However, this is not enough. One of the principal barriers to mobility in secondary education is the lack of recognition of its learning outcomes and unfortunately, in general secondary education, procedures for mutual recognition across EU Member States are often underdeveloped or non-existent.
In view of the creation of an European Education Area by 2025, and to better apply the Council recommendation on promoting automatic mutual recognition of higher education and upper secondary education and training qualifications and the outcomes of learning periods abroad, the European Parliament set aside funding for a Preparatory Action to look into this matter, and the European Commission entrusted a Consortium composed by EFIL, EIESP and CESIE to implement it.
The Consortium has developed an online information site which is now available on a dedicated section of the European School Education Gateway website here. The site provides specific and up-to-date Infopacks for each EU Member State with information on recognition procedures, with the aim of providing guidance and support to pupils and their families, education professionals, and policy makers who engage or work in the area of pupils’ mobility and wish to learn how outcomes of learning periods abroad are recognised in sending and receiving countries.
Furthermore, the Consortium is designing a proposal for a framework of European guidelines for automatic recognition which all Member States can adopt and respond to, and a model of training programme to support schools and education professionals in their assessment of competences of pupils acquired during study periods abroad. Both the Framework and Training Programme will be released soon, so stay tuned!
Are you a general secondary school pupil, education professional or policy maker interested in learning mobilities and recognition procedures?
Visit European School Education Gateway website or contact us at expert-network@recognisestudyabroad.eu