Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The Commission will support European co-operation on literacy issues by developing a European network of organisations working in this field. It will also ensure that its initiatives in ICT and education will facilitate the identification, analysis and sharing of good practices with regard to literacy.

The third item of business at the forthcoming Council meeting on 26 November is the adoption of conclusions on the contribution of education and training towards economic recovery and growth. The main aim of the document is to ask member states to develop and implement reforms based on the specific challenges identified in their education and training systems by the European Union’s growth and jobs strategy - Europe 2020.

The fourth item of business at Council will be the adoption of Council recommendations on the validation of non-formal and informal learning. This recommendation invites member states to establish validation systems for non-formal or informal learning with the aim of recognising the full range of an individual’s knowledge, skills and competences, that is those acquired not only at school, university or other education and training institutions but also outside the formal system. The recommendation invites member states to establish validation systems linked to the European qualifications framework by 2015, with the possibility of obtaining a full or partial qualification on the basis of non-formal or informal learning.

The fifth item of business at Council will be a policy debate on improving teacher quality and status. This discussion is particularly timely in two respects; the first being the current reforms taking place in teacher education in this country and; second, the fact that teacher education will be an area of focus during the Irish Presidency. The contribution to the debate will focus on these two areas.

I will make a presentation to Council on the priorities of the Irish Presidency. These have been outlined in the briefing note which my officials have supplied to the committee. It is customary for the incoming Presidency to update Council colleagues on what they plan to achieve during their Presidency term. I will now outline our priorities for the forthcoming Irish Presidency, starting in January.

Ensuring sustainable growth and jobs will be the main overall theme of Ireland’s Presidency. Education and training have a key role to play in the achievement of this main Presidency theme and in tackling and resolving the current unemployment crisis across Europe. The central importance of education and training to economic recovery is recognised in the Europe 2020 strategy. One of the five headline targets in the strategy relates to education and training. Quality and equity are the two core themes around which we have decided to focus all of the activities of the education and training dimension of our Presidency. Intensive preparations on our programme and calendar of events have been under way for some time.

On the legislative side during the Presidency the two main themes on our agenda will be the following: the first is the Erasmus for All programme, about which I have already spoken and the second is a new directive on the recognition of professional qualifications within the European Union. We have set the objective of obtaining a first reading agreement with the European Parliament on the regulation establishing Erasmus for All. Achieving agreement on the programme is a key task of the education and training agenda and has been the focus of discussion at three Presidencies to date.

The second priority for us will be the directive on professional qualifications. I will also give priority to obtaining early agreement with the European Parliament on a new directive to amend the 2005 directive on the recognition of professional qualifications. The modernisation of the directive is one of the levers to boost growth and strengthen confidence, which were set out in the Single Market Act 2011. It is therefore a priority for the Council, Commission and the European Parliament. The directive sets out the procedures which must be adhered to by competent authorities when recognising the qualifications of professionals migrating from other EU member states.

In addition to the legislative agenda we will give priority to advancing EU level co-operation on a number of key topics, in particular the wider skills agenda, teacher education, higher education and the ongoing implementation of national qualifications frameworks and the European qualifications framework itself. The Department has full responsibility at national level for both education and skills agendas. Hence, we consider we are very well placed to contribute to consolidating the thinking at EU level across the full range of education and training stakeholders. In this regard we intend to continue the process of integrating education and training into the Europe 2020 process for ensuring growth and jobs to a greater extent. An upcoming flagship Commission communication on rethinking education will inform our consideration of the skills issue and, subject to the timing of its publication, I envisage the adoption of Council conclusions responding to it at the February education Council. Under the Copenhagen process for enhanced co-operation in vocational education and training, the assigned semester theme for Ireland’s Presidency is quality assurance and a meeting of directors general of vocational education and training will progress this agenda item.

I wish to make the following point on teacher education, namely, high quality teaching is vital to achieving better student outcomes. This conclusion has been shared by multiple researches in various situations across the world. The Irish Presidency will propose the adoption of Council conclusions on improving policy support for the teaching education profession as well as holding a linked conference on the role of teacher educators. The conference is being organised in this country by the Teaching Council. We will also hold a Presidency conference organised by the Department’s inspectorate on improving assessment and evaluation for better learning and school systems. In line with the overall Presidency theme of quality, the conference will reflect upon and respond to the recent work of the Commission on assessment of key competences in schools and that of the OECD on evaluation and assessment frameworks for improving school outcomes.

I turn now to higher education. In line with the European Union 2020 agenda to step up modernisation of higher education and achieve the headline target that 40% of those aged 30 to 34 should have completed tertiary or equivalent education by 2020, we intend to propose the adoption of Council conclusions on the social dimensions of higher education. Effective strategies to ensure access to higher education for non-traditional learners and students from disadvantaged backgrounds will form an important part of the member states' efforts in working towards the headline target.

University rankings at international level are a matter of importance to the European Union and specifically to me and to Ireland. It is not widely known but 4,000 of the world's 15,000 universities are located within Europe. The current EU university multi-rank project is a priority for our Presidency. Europe must work closer together to provide balance in the current array of ranking systems with which the committee members will be familiar. The EU university multi-ranking conference is being organised by our Higher Education Authority. In addition, a meeting of the directors general of higher education will focus on the value of regional clusters in higher education across Europe.

I turn now to qualifications and the European qualities framework. We will also hold a Presidency conference organised by our new Qualifications and Quality Assurance Authority, the body that brought HETAC, FETAC and QQAI together, on the theme of quality assurance in qualifications frameworks. Linked to the skills agenda, this conference will include a focus on the manner in which employment sector actors are engaged in quality assurance regarding the needs of the labour market. That is the outline of my contribution. I will be happy to take whatever questions members want to put to me.