School education: European cooperation in quality evaluation. Recommendation

The Council considers that its common position constitutes a balanced text, which will contribute to both the improvement of quality education in school education at Member State level and cooperation at European level. Furthermore, the common position has accepted - either in full, in substance or in part - the amendments proposed by Parliament and accepted by the Commission, particularly with regard to: - strengthening the follow-up measures recommended in the Commission's proposal; - introducing explicit references to the crucial role played by performance indicators and benchmarks; - extending and clarifying the political scope of the recommendation; - introducing new recitals which clarify the proposal and stress the various objectives behind efforts to evaluate the quality of school education.�