New initiatives that will establish a European Education Area are being enabled by the European Commission. The European Education Area is an initiative aiming at benefiting young people across Europe to gain the best possible education and training. An initiative that will eventually give them the opportunity to find employment across Europe.

Galloping towards the European Education Area

Education and culture are considered by the European Union as two sectors that have the potential of creating new job positions, economic growth as well as improve social cohesion and provide the means to acquire a European Identity to its full extent.

Having this in mind the Commission aims at developing initiatives that will create the European Education Area. Here is the vision of the policy, according to the EU:

1. Young people in Europe will get the opportunity to travel abroad and spend time to study and learn to aim at becoming part of the norm.
2. The school and higher education qualifications from all European countries that will be recognized across the EU
3. Promotion of multilingual youth. Knowing two languages, in addition to the person’s native language should now be considered a standard
4. High-quality education should be accessible to everyone. The socio-economic background should not be a factor that will affect this premise
5. Europeans should acquire a much stronger sense of their European Identity, the European cultural heritage, and its diversity.

The EU’s work

The European Commission has already presented the first package of measures. This package is addressing the following:

1. Key competences for lifelong learning
2. Digital skills
3. Common values and inclusive education

The Commission is also proposing a second package. This package highlights some important key roles played by education, culture, and youth, in an effort to build a strong future for Europe. It shows how the Commission is able to effectively deliver on the calls for action by all the EU leaders in the December 2017 European Council Conclusion. The new package can be found in the “Communication on Building a stronger Europe: the role of youth, education and culture policies” document.

Here is the Commission’s vision on building the European Education Area by combining the following:

1. a strengthened Erasmus+ programme
2. an ambitious framework for European policy cooperation in education and training
3. support for Member State reforms through the European Semester
4. better targeted use of European funds

The “Communication” document also includes all the ongoing initiatives aiming at founding European Universities and a European student’s card. This package of initiatives includes proposals for Council Recommendations:

1.  Early Childhood Education and Care
2. on the Automatic Mutual Recognition of Diplomas and learning periods abroad
3. on improving the Teaching and Learning of Languages 

More Information on the European Education Area can be found on the Eu’s official website. Within the next few months, there will be more announcements by the Commission.