New Skills Agenda for Europe
The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection calls on the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the Committee on Culture and Education, as the committees responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into their motion for a resolution:
- Welcomes the Commission proposals for actions on skills development to reduce disparity
in education and disadvantages throughout the lifetime of a person, thereby enabling
European citizens to fight effectively against unemployment and ensure competitiveness
and innovation in Europe, but draws attention to a number of administrative obstacles
which are slowing progress in attaining those objectives in relation to the mobility of
professionals, recognition of qualifications and the teaching of professional qualifications;
- Calls, to that end, for Member States to ensure that the Internal Market Information
System (IMI) functions properly, facilitates better exchanges of data and enhances better
administrative cooperation without creating unnecessary administrative burdens, to
introduce simpler and faster procedures for the recognition of professional qualifications
and continuous professional development requirements of qualified professionals planning
to work in another Member State, and to prevent discrimination of all kinds; calls on the
Commission and the Member States, in particular, to facilitate access to skills
development for vulnerable citizens by assessing the need to establish specific tools, such
as local EU information centres and specific indicators within the Key Competences
Framework to take account of the needs of disadvantaged groups;
- Recalls that closing the skills gap and mismatches in the labour market and promoting
opportunities for social mobility, including for vocational training and apprenticeships, is
essential to promote sustainable growth, social cohesion, jobs creation, innovation and
entrepreneurship, in particular for SMEs and crafts; encourages the Member States,
therefore, to promote professional learning in accordance with economic demands;
- Recalls the importance of further prioritising professional, vocational, apprenticeship and
education (VET) programmes and of involving entrepreneurs, in particular SMEs, when
designing training programmes; recalls the European Pact for Youth project for boosting
the partnership between business and education;
- Calls on the Commission to analyse the national qualification schemes and suggests
adjusting them to match the changing needs of the new emerging professions; underlines
the need for Member States to support the teaching profession by facilitating access to
information on state-of-the-art technologies and recalls, to that end, the eTwinning
platform developed by the Commission;
- Urges the Commission and the Member States to explore ways, including via the
development of sector-specific platforms, to exchange best practices in the field of
education;
- Calls on the Member States to include entrepreneurial skills as well as management,
finance and the use of communication technologies in their education programmes to
develop engaged, active citizens; underlines that volunteering, internships and training are
key to shaping new innovative sectors in increasingly interconnected and culturally diverse economies;
- Considers that, in order to achieve positive results in terms of professional skills, it is vital
that the social partners communicate efficiently with local, regional and national
authorities to better match the jobs on offer with the demand for professional skills;
- Calls on the Commission to provide appropriate support and funding to foster
entrepreneurship and innovation ventures aimed at providing inclusive education for all;
- Recalls that Europe is at the forefront of knowledge, innovation and competitiveness and
is among the best in the world at striking a balance between employment, social security
and business, but recognises that there is still significant room for improvement;
underlines that the development of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics
(STEAM) and STEM skills should be enhanced in primary schools and at an earlier stage,
where relevant;
- Calls on the Commission to provide significant support for the development of digital
abilities, functional literacy and global competency in all age groups to take full advantage
of the opportunities in the digital single market, in particular in the fields of cloud
computing, platforms, big data, the collaborative economy, irrespective of employment
status and the opportunities and challenges arising from increased automation, as a first
step towards the better alignment of labour market shortages and demand and to face
unemployment; encourages the Commission, to that end, to increase the funding under the
European Framework Programmes, as well as the European Fund for Strategic
Investments (EFSI), fostering inclusive, innovative and reflective European societies to
get all citizens, in particular those with precarious socio-economic backgrounds or living
in remote areas, persons with disabilities, the elderly and the unemployed, to fully
participate in society and the labour market;
- Welcomes the Commission’s proposal to urge Member States to draw up comprehensive
national strategies for digital skills and asks the Commission to come forward with a
methodology for the recognition and assessment of the new digital professions and to
review appropriate funding arrangements for the new educational framework for digital
skills;
- Agrees with the Blueprint for Sectoral Cooperation on Skills provided by the Commission
in the framework of the pilot programme for six sectors and encourages its continuation.
Source: www.europarl.europa.eu