Education and lifelong learning: production and development of statistics

PURPOSE: to establish a common framework for the systematic production of Community statistics in the field of education and lifelong learning.

PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council.

BACKGROUND: in the general context of the re-launching of the Lisbon Strategy and the optimisation of human capital, it is necessary to have comparable statistics and indicators on education, training and lifelong learning. These are of increasing importance for the European Union to support the open method of coordination in the area of education and training policy

They are also necessary for policy discussions on human capital, innovation, growth and competitiveness in the framework of employment, research and innovation and economic policies. Education and training statistics were developed in the past decade based on the agreement of countries to work in the area (gentlemen's agreement) as a response to the Council Resolution (see OJ 94/C 374/02) on the promotion of education and training statistics in the EU. However, since the Lisbon European Council the demand is increasing and both Member States and the Commission acknowledge the need to specify and formalise the request in the form of a legal basis in order to be able to plan the resources necessary to achieve quality improvements and to carry out new surveys if necessary.

CONTENT: the intention of this proposal is to establish the framework for all the current and foreseeable activities in the field of lifelong learning statistics, with the exception of vocational training in enterprises (covering the survey CVTS), for which a European Parliament and Council regulation is about to be adopted.

In particular, the actions include methodological developments, bearing in mind the importance of the formulation of a framework of coherent concepts and comparable measures, specific data collections, in particular on education systems and on adult learning as well as the general objectives of improvement of quality and dissemination of education data. The intention is to establish the legal basis for a sustainable system of production of data on education to underpin policy discussions in different areas at the EU level.

The Regulation will apply to the production of statistics in three domains:

- Domain 1 will cover statistics on education and training systems;

- Domain 2 will cover statistics on participation of adults in lifelong learning;

- Domain 3 will cover other statistics on education and lifelong learning, such as statistics on human capital, social and economic benefits of education, not covered by Domains 1 and 2.

The regulation will establish a well defined framework for the production of Community education and lifelong learning statistics and in this way facilitate the availability, planning and more efficient use of resources both at the Community and at other levels involved (national, regional, local).

Whenever possible, the Commission (Eurostat) shall seek cooperation with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) and other international organisations with a view to ensuring international comparability of data and to avoid duplication of efforts, in particular as regards the development and improvements of statistical concepts and methods and the delivery of statistics by the Member States.