EU Work Plan for Sport 2011-2014 Expert Group "Education and Training in Sport Report from the 4 th meeting (Helsinki, 27 June 2013) July 2013 Rep ort drafted by the Europ ean Commission
2 PARTICIPANTS: Governmental representatives from the following Member States: AT, BE (Fl and Fr Com), DE, DK, EE, FI, FR, HU, IE, IT, LV, LT, MT, NL, PL, PT, SE, SI, SK, UK (chair) European Commission: DG EAC sport unit Observers: EOC EU Office, EU Athletes, ECC, EOSE, EHFA, ENGSO, EAS 1. INTRODUCTION The Chairman thanked Finland for hosting the meeting and for organising the seminar on 26 June 2013, which gave an interesting overview of Finnish developments in the field of dual careers of athletes. The Chairman welcomed the members of the Expert Group "Education and Training in Sport" (XG ETS) and the observers. The XG adopted the draft agenda without comments. 2. Developments in the field of sport and education Yves le Lostecque, the new Head of the Sport Unit, introduced himself and informed the meeting about the recent agreement between parliament, council and commission on the new 'Erasmus Plus' programme, which will include for the first time a sport chapter. Moreover, he informed the meeting about the foreseen Communication of the Commission that would report on the implementation of the first Work Plan for Sport in late 2013. In the framework of this evaluation, recommendations for the future Work Plan for Sport would be formulated. On this basis, the Council was expected to negotiate a 2 nd EU Work Plan for Sport in the first half of 2014. Regarding sport and education COM informed the meeting about the following developments: Preparatory Actions partnerships in sport 2013 A new Call for Proposals was launched in April 2013 based on the initiative of the Parliament. Applications in the field of mobility and sport, protection of minors, and traditional sports will be welcomed till 19 July 2013. In the field of mobility projects special attentions has been asked for dual careers. In the meantime a consortium with EOSE as one of the partners started the mobility study. Physical Education and Sport at schools (Eurydice, MINEPS) The Eurydice study on Physical Education and Sport at schools, which was presented in the Dublin meeting, has been published on the Eurydice website. Physical Education and Sport at schools on a global level got the attention in the Berlin Declaration, which was the result of the UNESCO World Conference of Ministers of Physical Education and Sport (MINEPS), hosted by Germany in Berlin from 28 to 30 May 2013. As a follow up, UNESCO planned a meeting on indicators for the quality of Physical Education and Sport in Paris on 28 June 2013. The Commission and Eurydice would be represented.
3 Inclusion of Sport in EU Education developments The sport and active leisure sector has been increasingly invited to participate in European meetings regarding developments in the field of education, which is very positive. Meetings took place to develop guidelines on the recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning (DG EAC and CEDEFOP) and experts were invited for a reference group of ESCO (DG Employment and DG EAC). Further consultations are foreseen in the field of international qualifications and their relation to NQF and EQF as this is a topic on the agenda of the EQF Advisory Group and part of the activities of CEDEFOP. Contacts with international sport organisations COM informed the meeting that it attended the meeting of the International Council on Coaching Excellence (ICCE) and International federations of Summer Olympic Sports in Leeds in March 2013 regarding the global coaching framework as observer. The meeting will get its follow up in a next version of the framework to be presented at an ICCE global conference in South Africa in September 2013. Council Conclusions on Dual careers for athletes The Council of Ministers responsible for Sport adopted the Conclusions on Dual careers for Athletes on 17 May 2013. The conclusions, which follow the Dual Career Guidelines developed by the Expert Group, were made public in the Official Journal of the European Union on 14 June and are now available in all EU languages. Commissioner Vassiliou expressed already her commitment towards the invitations addressed to the European Commission in the conclusions. It is now up to the MS to take actions on the national level, as for example Finland did already according the presentations of the XG ETS seminar on 26 June 2013. The topic will get a follow up at the EU sport Forum in Vilnius and is one of the priority areas in the future sport chapter of the Erasmus Plus Programme. ESCO The European Commission is developing a classification of European Skills/ Competences, qualifications and Occupations (ESCO) in close collaboration with stakeholders. In order to develop the contents of the ESCO classification the European Commission relies on the expertise of sectoral Reference Groups. Sport is part of the Arts, Entertainment and Recreation reference group and 4 experts from the field of sport are part of this group. One of the experts of this group, representing the Fitness sector, informed the meeting that the subgroup of sport and active leisure had its first meeting and identified occupational areas in the sector and analyse knowledge, skills and competences required by people working in these occupations. Furthermore, the group will identify key qualifications in the sector. The result of the Reference Group's work will be a revised content of the ESCO classification that can be used for online job matching and other purposes. ESCO will enhance communication in the labour market and the education/training sector throughout Europe. More information is available on the ESCO website. MoU on pilot project on professional cards for ski instructors As it was reported in the XG meeting in Dublin a pilot project on a professional card for mountain guides and ski instructors was launched. The Memorandum of Understanding between the MS involved was extended and a small group of experts
4 was now visiting all the MS to identify the state of play in all involved MS and give further advice, based on the arrangements made in the MoU. 3. PRESENTATION MID-TERM REPORT AND POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATIONS The lead expert on the inclusion of sport qualifications in National Qualifications Frameworks (NQFs) presented an overview of the activities of the Expert group in the several meetings on this topic. He thanked all MS for their contributions and confirmed that the report was based on input from all MS now. He pointed out that the process of the inclusion of sport qualifications and the implementation of the learning outcomes approach had not been finalized yet in many Member States and that a final report should be presented to the Council at a later stage. The inventory and country reports had shown interesting developments which need further attention in the future, such as quality assurance in the formalized sport education and non-formal sport education systems, arrangements to be made with international sport organisations on the matching of international qualifications and conventions in the field of sport with NQFs, and the alignment of the formal and non-formal sport education systems in order to maximise the mutual recognition of competences and qualifications and to enhance cooperation and the quality of educational programmes in both systems. As the midterm report was based on the annexes the chair proposed to first discuss and adopt the annexes and then discus the midterm report itself. Report on the results of the inventory The Expert Group adopted the report. Regarding Croatia it decided that the results of their inventory should not be integrated in the report. They could be presented separately as annex or in the country report. Country reports state of play inclusion of sport qualifications COM first thanked experts for the corrections and confirmation of the country reports. The introduction of the general NQF developments and the examples of formal education institutes providing sport qualification have enriched the documents substantially and as a consequence gave a solid base for drafting the midterm report and the recommendations. Unfortunately not much information could be found on formal VET education institutes and sport qualifications. The Expert group adopted the document and MS were given the opportunity for final corrections in their own country reports till 1 July 2013. Glossary The meeting adopted the Glossary The lead expert then presented the mid-term report and in particular the conclusions and the recommendations to the Working Party Sport of the Council.
5 4. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS ON MID-TERM REPORT AND RECOMMENDATIONS TO WORKING PARTY SPORT The meeting thanked the expert for the presentation of the mid-term report and its annexes and complimented on the work done. Some editorial remarks were made and corrections proposed for the first three chapters regarding the sport university in Lithuania, the number of annually qualified people in the formalized sport and non-formal sport education systems. In 3.4 the number of MS where an extra national qualification was needed in case of an obtained international qualification, should be aligned with the findings in the inventory. It was agreed that the Member States should be mentioned separately, if numbers of MS were presented in the document. Regarding the recommendations the meeting agreed that not only sport ministers should be addressed but also ministers responsible for sport. Similarly, the invitation to Ministers of Education should be made broader, as in some countries more ministers are responsible for education on the different levels. Moreover more cooperation between the different ministers could be mentioned to support the process Special attention was asked for visibility of the whole process of transformation and inclusion of sport qualifications on European and national level. More and better communication was needed to convince the stakeholders in the field of sport why transformation is needed and what the advantages are for the individual person and the sport organisations themselves. The meeting decided to integrate these remarks in the 5 th recommendation. Proposals to include other mobility instruments and tools such as Europass, ECVET and ECTS were rejected and could be part of the discussion on possible future actions in the field of sport and education. It was suggested that for the implementation of the recommendation regarding a possible study further cooperation with the Expert Group of Statistics and CEDEFOP could be helpful. Finally, it was recommended not to limit the contacts with the internal federations but to include other sport stakeholders on the international level as well, if applicable. Taking in account the remarks made, the Expert Group adopted the mid-term report. The final version will be sent around once more for possible final remarks on the corrections. Afterwards the deliverable would be sent to the Working Party Sport of the Council. 5. Future EU level work in the field of sport and education The Chair introduced the document Proposal for future EU actions in the field of education and training in sport. He pointed out that the present document was still an internal document for discussion in the Expert group. After the discussions in the meeting it will be redrafted as a deliverable to be sent to the Council. The proposal for future actions will be part of the negotiations about the next EU Work Plan for Sport of the Council.
6 The presented topics in the documents should be seen as a list of possible topics, after the first selection by the chair. The Expert group indicated clearly that the work of the Expert Group has not be finished as the topics of dual careers and EQF needed a follow up and that the format of this Expert Group worked out well. Within the topic of sport qualifications attention should also be asked for quality assurance and the coherence with other mobility instruments such as ECVET, Europass and ECTS. Member States agreed with the presented topics in the document and added the following two extra clusters of topics: - Physical activities and sport at school, including recommendations for a school day, and the possible future acceptance of physical education as a key competence - Developments at the (sport) labour market and the consequences for the education sport systems in line with the Europe 2020 strategy, the new skills new jobs initiative and ESCO It was also suggested to start the future action document with an overall mission, which could position the new deliverables and to propose further research including the (cost) effectiveness of dual career systems and services. The Chair thanked the meeting for the valuable suggestions and noticed there was a general agreement on the additional topics and promised to provide a final draft for a written procedure by 1 September 2013. 6. Conclusions and next steps Slovakia announced the Nature & Sports Euro'Meet outdoor sports conference in Liptovsky Mikulas in the Tatras Mountain area of Slovakia. The conference will be held on the 2 4th October 2013 and is organised in joint venture with the European Network for Outdoor Sports (ENOS). The meeting will also focus on education and qualifications in this field. Slovakia asked the cooperation in the field a European schoolsport label. At present schools in Slovakia could gain such a national label, but there is an intention to work together with schools outside Slovakia to make the label more international. The EAS Dual Career network announced its annual conference and meeting in Trondheim Norway on 19-21 September 2013. COM informed the meeting about the EU Sport Forum in Vilnius Lithuania on 30 September and 1 October 2013 with a panel debate on dual careers for athletes and the new Workplan Sport on the agenda. Furthermore, it announced the EU conference on gender equality and sport on 3-4 December 2013 with a workshop and possible recommendations on gender equality and coaching. The Chairman informed the XG that the presentations of the meeting would be attached to the report. He thanked all experts for their contributions, and closed the meeting.