John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The European Commission adopted its proposal for a New Skills Agenda for Europe on 10 June. It noted that all member states faced similar problems and opportunities with skills acquisition and development, the quality and relevance of the education and training available, including teaching standards, and learning in settings outside formal education.

The Skills Agenda for Europe proposal seeks to strengthen and, in some cases, streamline existing initiatives to better assist member states in their national reforms. There is no new funding available for this proposal. The EU has done much work on progressing the skills framework in the development of, for example, the key competency framework for lifelong learning, mutual recognition of qualifications, co-operation on vocational education and training, the European Alliance for Apprenticeships, student and academic mobility and co-operation, the Youth Guarantee and the Youth Employment Initiative. It provides the European Social Fund - €542 million for Ireland for the period 2014 to 2020 - and the Erasmus+ funding programmes to provide funding in support of its policies. These initiatives have assisted member states, including Ireland, in enhancing the relevance, efficiency and flexibility of our upskilling strategies and our labour markets to meet the challenges of increasingly competitive and globalised markets.

The proposal seeks a shared commitment to reform in a number of areas where European Union action brings most added value: improving the quality and relevance of skills formation; making skills and qualifications more visible and comparable; and improving skills intelligence and information for better career choices.

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