EU fights for educational equality

Education must be more efficient and fair if the EU is to compete internationally, the European commission has declared.

In a communication adopted on Friday the EU executive warned member states agasint ignoring the social dividend of education and training costs.

“Efficient education and training systems can have a significant positive impact on our economy and society,” European education commissioner Ján Figel said.

Figel emphasised the “huge hidden costs” of unequal education.

“A lower educated society results in income tax losses, inflated health-care expenditure, higher crime related costs and deeper digging into unemployment and social assistance funds,” he said.

“If we forget the social dimension of education and training, we risk incurring huge corrective costs later on.”

Figel argues that at the moment all tax payers pay for publicly subsidised higher education, but only a relatively small elite profit from it.

The commission also advocates more investment in primary education, less early streaming of pupils and a ‘culture of [data] evaluation’ in the member states to assess educational progress.

Figel’s plans strike at the heart of Europe’s so-called Lisbon agenda for jobs and growth.

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