First Meeting of ET 2020 Working Group on Transversal Skills

Ref. Ares(2014)1263271-23/04/2014 First Meeting of ET 2020 Working Group on Transversal Skills 29-30 January 2014, Brussels, Albert Borschette Conference Centre Meeting Report On Wednesday 29 January and Thursday 30 January 2014, the first meeting of a newly established ET 2020 Working Group took place. The group aims specifically to address the priorities on Transversal Skills as identified in the Rethinking Education 1 communication from 2012. As stated in the mandate of the group: Transversal skills have cross-cutting dimensions and give people a high degree of transferability in both life and work, adding value to job-specific knowledge and skills. They are skills that do not stem from a specific vocational context, but are instead relevant as both a citizen or in employment. Transversal skills have been shown to positively impact on employability, active citizenship and levels of new business creation (for both social aims and personal profit). They can be drivers for social and economic well-being, supporting Europe's key priority for growth and new job creation through a more employable and productive workforce as well as higher numbers of new business start-ups. During their mandate over the next two years, the WG will concentrate on three transversal skills: 1. Entrepreneurship; 2. Digital Skills; and 3. Languages. 2 Actions regarding these three skills were previously addressed in three different Thematic Working Groups. However, Transversal Skills are by nature cross-cutting; many aspects of interdependency between the three skills mentioned were identified. Hence, it was presumed that bringing together actions within the remit of a single Working Group will have significant added value. The first meeting had three main purposes: Introduction to the mandate and the work plan of the Working Group; Presentation of several programmes and initiatives launched by the European Commission addressing the development of Transversal Skills (Erasmus +, Entrepreneurship 360, European Area of Skills and Qualifications (EASQ)); Presentation of Policy Experimentations ; and group work regarding the development of ideas for projects regarding this programme. Day 1 was mainly dedicated to the first two points - introduction to the group and its mandate; presentation of programmes and initiatives launched by the European Commission. Day 2 was mainly dedicated to Group Work on Policy Experimentations. The meeting was chaired by the European Commission, DG EAC, Unit A3. 20 countries and 8 European (stakeholder) institutions were represented at the meeting. Countries: Austria, Belgium-fr, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. European (Stakeholder) institutions CEDEFOP, ETF, ETUCE, EUCIS-LLL, EUROCHAMBERS, European School Net, SEECEL, UEAPME. This meeting report gives an overview on the presentations and discussions in plenary and on action points agreed. All presentations will be provided separately. 1 http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/news/communication-rethinking-education 2 Please note: The existing separate language learning group will continue their work until a new benchmark is agreed and established. They will join the group on transversal skills in summer 2014. 1

Day 1 29 January 2014 10.00 Welcome The representatives of European Commission, welcomed the Group Members to the meeting and took the participants briefly though the Agenda. 10.15 Introduction to the mandate and activity of the ET2020 Working Group on Transversal Skills In an introductory session, COM pointed out that the Working Group on Transversal Skills (TVS) was set up against the background of three main context factors: 1. The Europe 2020 strategy and the European Semester Process 3 : In the context of the European Semester Process and the country specific recommendations issued every year, the European Commission would like to harvest information about what happens at national level to help identify challenges and support Member States (MS) in tackling them. This information will help fine-tune country specific information and analysis. This should not be understood as a way of ranking countries, but as a way of identifying the right messages and ensure they are meaningful. In that context, it is important that those who are in the group are able to percolate the messages discussed across ministries. 2. Policy Communication - Rethinking Education and Opening up education 4 : Both papers frame the policy background, but also directly address transversal skills. While Rethinking Education puts Entrepreneurship and languages in the focus, Opening up Education rather addresses Digital Skills. 3. ERASMUS + 5 : This new EU programme includes funding opportunities for initiatives regarding transversal skills. Discussing these opportunities will be one of the main priorities of the meeting. When the group was set up, three previously existing groups each focusing on one aspect of TVS - were merged. That however does not mean that we expect to create sub-groups discussing separate topics. The intention is rather to create synergies and make connections between the different areas of work, to achieve cross-fertilisation. COM believes that it is by cross-fertilisation that this group will benefit the most and create most added-value. Three experts from each country were invited - it is intended that the composition reflects different competence areas; however it is acknowledged that this is not always possible. Moreover, it is not the intention that colleagues should attend only those meetings that reflect their focus of expertise it is rather intended that there is a mix of different expertise represented. An example of possible cross-fertilisation was presented: The European Language Competence Framework, a long standing and recognised instrument that is widely used across countries. Work on developing a similar framework for Digital Skills has begun and will be continued by the group, and the potential for doing the same for Entrepreneurship will also be considered and developed by the group. A new approach to the Working Groups was taken in 2013. As of 2014, there will now be six WGs in total: Transversal Skills (this group); Digital and online learning; Schools (including Early School Leaving and the Teaching Profession); Vocational Education and Training (VET including apprenticeships and work-based learning); Adult Learning (including reducing the number of low-skilled adults (up-skilling and reskilling)); Modernisation of Higher Education; 6 3 http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm 4 http://new.eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/txt/?qid=1389115469384&uri=celex:52013dc0654 5 http://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/index_en.htm 2

It would be beneficial to the process if the group members would take the opportunity to liaise with those colleagues in their country who attend the other groups. There are attempts to align the agendas, to make sure to move forward at the same pace, and create cross-group synergies. In particular, the points discussed in the digital and online learning group are related. However, the mandate of this group has not been circulated yet the group is expected to start its work in June. At the same time, the colleagues from the current group on languages will join - they are still working on establishing a new benchmark, and will finalise this before they start a new process. The WG will take a blended learning approach: there will be four face to face meetings every year and three-four webinars. The principle of the flipped classroom will be applied: the face-toface meeting time should be reserved to group discussions and work. Conveying information should be split up and facilitated through webinars, where presentations can be shared and information can be presented. Webinars are also an attempt to reduce costs for Member States no travel costs have to be born and the amount of time invested is significantly lower. The group members are invited to use the webinars to communicate events and programmes, projects, strategies everything interesting that happens on national level. Furthermore, there will be an online platform for collaboration for all TWGs which is foreseen to be launched in March. The platform will be used to store material and distribute invitations as well. The Commission will also develop an electronic newsletter approximately every quarter. The newsletter will contain information on events on a European and national level. 11.00 Introduction of the Working Group Members After the introduction by the Commission, the group members got the opportunity to introduce themselves. 20 countries and 8 European (stakeholder) institutions were represented at the meeting. Countries: Austria, Belgium-fr, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. Six of the countries invited had not yet nominated representatives: UK, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, and Iceland. COM reminded participants of the fact that participation in these groups is voluntary, so if countries feel this policy area is currently not a priority, they are not forced to. European (Stakeholder) institutions CEDEFOP, ETF, ETUCE, EUCIS-LLL, EUROCHAMBERS, European School Net, SEECEL, UEAPME As to the mix of persons, most of the participants were representatives of National Ministries or the national/regional school inspection, but some participants were also independent education experts. All educational levels were represented, including teacher training. Almost all participants had experience in working for a European Working Group, most of them in working for the two preceding thematic groups on Entrepreneurship Education or ICT skills. 12.00 Coffee Break 12.15 Group Mandate After the coffee break, COM presented the Group Mandate. The group has been set up since plenty of commonalities between the three skills (digital, entrepreneurial and language skills) have previously been identified. What is most important is that all three of them strongly support employability. They are in demand with employers and hence, are important to young people to help them sell themselves to employers. However they also promote business creation and active 6 http://www.eu2013.ie/media/eupresidency/content/documents/dgforvocationaltraining/3-omc-thematic- Working-Group-in-Education-and-Training.pdf 3

citizenship (see slide below). The group will work on four main policy challenges, and it will work output-oriented; hence, it is expected that products will be produced in relation to each of the policy challenges. Policy Challenge 1: Mainstreaming delivery and development of transversal skills into education and training - delivery, assessment and recognition (including non-formal and in-formal learning) Related to Policy challenge No. 1 is Output 1 Policy Experimentation: Policy Experimentations are large-scale transnational pilot projects which are set up to help with the mainstreaming of a specific practice in the national education system. They should be led by ministries in collaboration with evaluators and stakeholders, be implemented through national field trials, be rigorously evaluated, and have the potential to be up-scaled through policy reform. The concept of policy experimentations was later presented in detail. A part of the meeting was dedicated to discussing the policy experimentations and to develop concrete ideas for projects. Policy Challenge 2: Training and equipping education leaders and educators to incorporate entrepreneurial skill development into their learning environments Related to Policy challenge No. 2 is Output 2 Entrepreneurship 360 Entrepreneurship 360 is a collaborative project with OECD, aiming to develop a guidance framework to support the development of more entrepreneurial schools and VET. It applies a 360 degree look at institutions and is based on extensive consultation with stakeholders. It is expected to have an impact on entrepreneurial leadership, and will be implemented on national and regional level. Equally, the concept of Entrepreneurship 360 was presented on Day 2 in more detail. Policy Challenge 3: Developing frameworks and tools to operationalise transversal skills in the education, training and youth fields Related to Policy Challenge No. 3 are Outputs 3-5 - European Reference Framework for all three areas. Several work steps are necessary to achieve the goal: Break down the key competence into composite parts Identify necessary LOs across EQF levels Demonstrate a simple framework for policy makers and curriculum designers. It was stated that form languages, the Guidelines for use of European Reference Framework for Languages in assessment will be a set of recommendation about how to link national language competence testing to the (C)ommon (E)uropean (F)ramework of (R)eference for Languages. In fact work has already been started as the ECML, the organisation that created the framework, has been engaging in workshops with the Member States to address this topic. The Guidelines will be prepared with the involvement of Member State experts, as well as the European Centre 4

for Modern Languages. Moreover, related to Policy Challenge No. 3, Output 6 is aimed at: Feasibility study for a reference tool for transversal Skills, Citizen Tool for Self-Assessment of Transversal Skills. The self-assessment tool should be relevant to digital and entrepreneurship areas and will be based on the Competence Reference Frameworks. Policy Challenge 4: Support country level policy and implementation - assistance to Member States facing issues identified in CSRs. Related to Policy Challenge No. 4 is Output 7: In depth Country Focus Workshops to support development areas identified through CSRs (as part of the European Semester Process, see below). The European Semester Process To ensure Member States align their budgetary and economic policies with the Stability and Growth Pact and the Europe 2020 strategy, the European Commission has set up a yearly cycle of economic policy coordination called the European Semester. Each year the European Commission undertakes a detailed analysis of EU Member States' programmes of economic and structural reforms and provides them with recommendations for the next 12-18 months. The European semester starts when the Commission adopts its Annual Growth Survey, usually towards the end of the year, which sets out EU priorities for the coming year to boost growth and job creation. In March, EU Heads of State and Government issue EU guidance for national policies on the basis of the Annual Growth Survey. In April, Member States submit their plans for sound public finances (Stability or Convergence Programmes) and reforms and measures to make progress towards smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, in areas such as employment, research, innovation, energy or social inclusion (National Reform Programmes). In May/June, the Commission assesses these programmes and provides Country-Specific Recommendations (CSR) as appropriate. The Council discusses and the European Council endorses the recommendations. Policy advice is thus given to Member States before they start to finalise their draft budgets for the following year. More info: http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/making-it-happen/index_en.htm 12.30 Workshop 1: Comments to the mandate and work plan After the presentation, the group was asked to split up in six small groups of six persons each to discuss the mandate, the work plan and the policy priorities they see immediately. 13.00 Workshop 1: Reporting back to plenary One rapporteur per group summarised feedback in plenary. The following main tendencies were noticed: 1) How realistic is the mandate? The members are slightly worried about the number and complexity of the desired outputs. 2) The members requested more information about output of previous groups since they would like to pick up on previous work 3) The understanding of transversal skills is not the same across countries the characteristics of the three areas and the idea of what transversal skills are need to be further discussed to ensure coherence. 4) This is specifically important when developing a framework and deciding on how to operationalise it. What will be the main target groups? In some national curricula basic skills are transversal. And here, this definition does not match. In other countries it does. But to what extent are digital competences based on basic skills? 5

13.30 Lunch 5) Two areas were identified as missing from the mandate: Teacher Training and Assessment, which were seen as very important. 6) More attention should be given to what happens outside of the formal educational system. 7) Products need to be adapted to national conditions (translation, but also beyond that.) 8) Hard messages that need to be delivered: We need to push forward. All products/output of the group must indicate that Transversal Skills improve employability and growth. But governments look at immediate results: How can that be married up. The way forward has to look at model practice. In education we need to give teaching and learning back to teachers and learners. 9) On the other hand - the citizenship aspect should be emphasised as well. It is not just about job-readiness. 14.30 After lunch break, COM addressed the comments of group. It was emphasised that it is intended to pursue a participative approach and work collaboratively towards the desired output. The webinars should be seen in that context as well: In line with the principle of flipped classroom, the webinars will be used to make information available, while the meetings will be used to work in groups. Members States are invited to provide the necessary means for group members to participate in the webinars; so that the new approach adds to time and cost efficiency. COM is aware that Member States don t necessarily have a common understanding to transversal skills (yet); it is a new emerging policy area. However, from COM perspective, having worked across the areas, plenty of synergies came up through the previous groups. That is why it was felt that it is worthwhile to go through the effort of further defining the commonalities and coherence that are there. Out of the points mentioned through the groups, three stood out: Assessment: This point will come out strongly through policy experimentation; Teacher training; Management of schools. Form COM perspective, there will be plenty of room and opportunity to address these areas, since it is felt that they are of vital importance. The concern that the programme looks quite ambitious and many deliverables are connected to it was also addressed: It was suggested to take stock in a years time and see what was achieved. It is a challenging programme and every effort will be to achieve it but it is also possible to make slight amendments to the mandate, to make sure concerns raised will be addressed. The suspension dots will be addressed. After a year, it will be possible to see how the group and the goals evolved and whether the programme is feasible. 14.45 Erasmus+ - the new programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport for 2014-2020 A brief overview of the new funding opportunities under the Erasmus+ programme was given, highlighting those relevant to the development of policy and activity around transversal skills. With Erasmus +, the Commission took a new approach to funding, which was deemed necessary due to the changing landscape in countries hit by the crisis: High youth unemployment rates require action and investment. Every Euro available should go into education but the money needs to be well spent and bring about added value. Reforms need to have an impact; closer links between programmes and policy objectives need to be established. The new programme is perceived as a single integrated programme, covering all education, training and youth sectors in a holistic manner, and adding sport. It brings seven existing programmes into a single coherent framework, seeking to achieve greater systemic impact. In general, there will be fewer calls, fewer numbers of programmes - but there is a substantial increase of budget, and those with the most innovative approaches will be rewarded. Of course it 6

is still a drop in the sea, but there is room for many projects and innovative action. There will be 3 key actions: Learning mobility of individuals; Cooperation for innovation and exchange of good practices (knowledge alliances, sector skills alliances); and Support to policy reform. 70% of the budget is allocated to mobility hence, the National Lifelong Learning Agencies will have an important role to play in the implementation. 15.15 Workshop 2: What are the key issues (and most urgent needs and gaps) in the policies of your country concerning transversal skills? The participants were invited to split up in groups of six to discuss the key issues.. 15.45 Policy experimentations Introduction to the instrument and topics for 2014-2015 Policy experimentations fall under Key Action 3 of the Erasmus+ programme. They are a new type of instrument designed to help countries to develop, but also to implement. They promote the experimentation of innovative actions, but go beyond that and promote systemic change as well hence, making sure that there is an impact towards to sustainability and mainstreaming; and lessons learned from innovative projects will be put into action. This is based on the experience that experimentations often have interesting results on a small scale, but do not produce the same results on a large scale, since they are based on false assumptions the conditions under which actions were tested cannot be reproduced on a large scale. Hence, the impact of innovative action can be limited since it doesn t fit with reality; mainstreaming is not achieved. The policy experimentations try to learn from this and try to ensure that experimentation is done on a large scale (with strong potential to be up-scaled even further and result in systemic reform), goes together with strong political commitment. Moreover, they should be based on a transnational approach with one country leading and others either participating the testing or providing expertise. The policy experimentations require the following set-up: Led by ministries Developing and implementing field trials in cooperation with evaluators and stakeholders Be linked with the OMC and CSRs Rigorous evaluation methods Transnational development and evaluation/national trials Up-scaling through systemic governmental reform Activities connected to the policy experimentations: Development and implementation of field trials Identifying measures to be tested and expected results, target groups / Identifying and involving relevant stakeholders / Defining set of actions/ Conducting the experimentation and collecting evidence / Impact assessment / Identifying options for scalability and transferability; Monitoring, evaluation and reporting. Data processing and policy analysis Apply rigorous evaluation methods based on precise indicators; determine relevance, effectiveness, efficiency and conditions for scalability Dissemination of results embedded in methodology Stakeholder commitment and ownership; Potential systemic impact and up-scaling; Transferability between different countries, sectors, systems and policies at national and international level (peer learning). 7

Policy experimentation: Two examples (LLP Pilots 2012) 1) EU Classroom eportfolios: A portfolio approach to integrate ICT in teaching, learning & assessment, coordinated by the Department of Education and Skills, Ireland. 14 partners from 8 countries (IE, AT, BG, CY, ES, IE, LT, SI) Budget : 1 Mio ; EU grant : 0,8 Mio http://www.eportfolio.eu/initiatives/eufolio-eu-classroom-eportfolios 2) Creative Classrooms Lab: Pan-EU experimentation on use of tablets to improve teaching/learning practice, coordinated by the EUN Partnership AISBL 9 Education Ministries (AT, BE-NL, BE-FR, CZ, IT, LT, PT, SI, UK) Budget: 1 Mio ; EU grant : 0,8 www.creative.eun.org Policy Experimentations Topics for 2014-2015 COM presented the practicalities of the call for proposals (application stages, quality and award criteria) as well: The Call will be launched in February/March 2014 and will be managed by EACEA. A two stage approach to awarding the grants is foreseen, to make sure only promising projects will need to go through the entire procedure. Decisions will be taken by the end of summer. The policy experimentations are addressing four topics: 1. Assessment of transversal skills in basic and secondary education 2. Practical entrepreneurial experiences at school 3. Cooperation on innovative methods for fast and smooth academic recognition across borders in HE 4. Reduce number of low skilled adults The two first topics relate to transversal skills. The following type of actions is envisaged: Large scale pilots in collaboration with schools to Identify, design and test assessment tools of transversal skills; Large scale pilots in collaboration with schools to test innovative approaches to ensuring practical entrepreneurial experiences at school. The testing and experimentation should happen in transnational partnerships. They should be led by ministries, but the roles can vary policy makers can delegate the testing to other institutions. A partner can be confined to a consultancy role. 16.40 Workshop 3: Which are the existing pilots, experiments, initiatives, actions in the Member States - ongoing or foreseen for 2014/2015? As a last task for the day, the participants were invited to discuss what is already ongoing. They were asked to share and present national good practice to each other. They were also invited to fill in a matrix giving an overview on ongoing activities regarding TVS and put that up in plenary (or hand in later, after collecting more information in the MS). Moreover, participants were asked to discuss existing pilots on transversal skills and explore how those could link with the policy experimentations. 17.15 Closing of day 1 8

Day 2-30 January 2014 Day 2 Tuesday, 10 September 2013 9.30 COM welcomed the Group to Day 2 and gave a brief overview on the work programme for the day. 9.40 Workshop 4: If your country would be interested in participating in a call for proposals on Policy Experimentations, which would be the preferred key topic and approach? The two priorities for policy experimentation in 2014-2015 were presented again: 1. Assessment of transversal skills in basic and secondary education 2. Practical entrepreneurial experiences at school (in basic and secondary education) A brainstorming on both themes was carried out with the aim of developing concrete ideas to be further discussed in workshops. Member State representatives were asked to identify the key issues in their country on the assessment of transversal skills. Three points were clarified upfront: The term transversal skills is not used consistently in all countries. Some countries don t use it at all but call it soft skills, others cross-subject skills. Over the course of the group, further clarification is needed. Higher education is momentarily not in the focus, but that does not mean it is excluded from the discussion. The focus is on basic and secondary education because developing approaches to the assessment of transversal skills is more of urgency there. Also, since funding resources are not unlimited, priorities need to be set. This also enables having a more focused approach for proposals. After a first round, the focus can be broadened, or approaches can be scaled up. Assessment does not need to be confined to assessing learning outcomes of students; assessment of teachers can also be discussed. Entrepreneurship should be considered in the broader view. It is about having ideas and turning these ideas into action. This involves personal competences like self-reliance in solving issues; or the ability to collaborate. 10.00 Assessment of transversal skills in basic and secondary education Brainstorming to collect ideas for the workshops Several interests and project ideas in relation to the call were put forward: Methodologies for the assessment of the language skills of migrants Methodologies for the assessment of teachers and students digital skills, Methodologies to identify skills that could be fostered through digital skills. What kind of transversal skills pupils learn through digital skills and how can teachers assess these skills? How to use ICT and other technologies to assess transversal skills? Identifying which key competences for employment can be assessed. Develop collaborative methods of assessment of individual learners; Methodologies to adapt transversal skills assessment to specific areas, such as economics; Guidance on the assessment of cognitive and non-cognitive competences. Practical entrepreneurial experience at school (compulsory education only) - Brainstorming to collect ideas for the workshops Developing entrepreneurship projects at all levels of education, including assessment. Collect evidence/data/statistics on the efficiency of entrepreneurship education to monitor success, a proof that the money is well invested. An indicator could be, out of this school, X start-ups/projects have been really put into place afterwards. It would be great to compare results with other countries. How to use the entrepreneurship material developed outside the curricula (e.g. by other stakeholders such as Chambers). Developing entrepreneurial practices with all kinds of partners, for instance businesses, research institutes, students at the local level. Develop creative, innovative ideas for accreditation; assessment of entrepreneurial skills acquired - not only through formal activities, but also in other contexts. Developing entrepreneurial schools exposing students, teachers, to practical experience, 9

preceded by peer learning, in a holistic approach of entrepreneurship education delivery. Summary/Selection of potential ideas to discuss during the workshops: Assessment: 1) The assessment of digital competences of learners and the didactic competences needed for teachers to do that; 2) Processes to assess individual learning through collaborative methods. Entrepreneurship: 1) How to develop a methodology to monitor the success and impact of EE (E.g. through linking it with business start-ups); 2) Development of a entrepreneurship certificate, looking at combining skills, competences and attitudes; 3) Holistic approach of EE delivery in entrepreneurial schools; 4) Opening up schools to partnerships 11.30 Workshop 4: Policy Experimentations exploring common themes 13.00 Lunch To stimulate further discussion, participants were invited to gather in small groups, look at the ideas together and discuss the topics put forward according to their interests. 14.00 The Commission clarified some information around the call for proposals on policy experimentation: The budget for experimentation will be around 8 million - around 2 million for each of the 4 themes. It is aimed to have 2 projects per theme (1 million per project): This means that COM is really looking for large-scale high quality projects. The project selection will be a two-staged process: there will be a pre-selection before call of the proposal (otherwise people put too much effort on the proposal for nothing). The call will also clarify the understanding of transversal skills. The questions mentioned during the brainstorming in the morning were seen as helpful to identify areas where further clarification is needed. Action points: COM agreed to circulate information to the themes for possible policy experimentations that emerged during the Working Group, and will also circulate the names of the nominated contact points for each of the themes. COM encouraged groups which were formed to get in contact with each other and follow-up their ideas for policy experimentations. COM advises members of the group to read the call for policy experimentations in detail once it is published, and to submit proposals accordingly. 14.15 European Area of Skills and Qualifications An introduction COM provided an overview on the European Area of Skills and Qualifications (EASQ). The EASQ is based on the idea of providing tools to enhance the transparency of qualifications across countries and facilitate learners and workers mobility. In a European Area of Skills and Qualifications EU policies and tools should: be coherent and centred on the learner, promoting flexible learning pathways support new phenomena such as the growing use of digital learning and internationalisation of education provide better services to learners and workers be simpler, better understandable and more coherent support national structural reforms that aim to achieve these objectives The EASQ is still a vision though; there is still a long way to go to realise it. There are still issues in recognition which hinder mobility. Learners and workers need easier solutions to get their competences more easily recognised to work or study abroad. Moreover, in the context of rapid economic and technical changes - there is a need for more flexible learning pathways. Progress has been made, and tools have been developed (EQF, Learning Outcomes approach, ECVET, 10

ECTS, Europass etc.) but there is still a long way to go. The next steps foreseen are 2013-2014 evaluation and review of European transparency tools (EQF, Europass, EQAVET, ESG, ECVET, ECTS); End of 2013: Launch of an online public consultation addressed to stakeholders and the general public; Early 2014: planned Eurobarometer survey; Early 2014: launch of a study (empirical evidence on remaining obstacles); First half of 2014: closing conference of the public consultation/debate; First half of 2015: possible launch of a political initiative by the Commission. At the end of the presentation, the importance of the public consultation process that was just launched was emphasised. The period of consultation is from 17.12.2013 to 15.04.2014, and the objective is to collect the views of stakeholders on the problems faced by learners and workers with regard to the transparency and recognition of their skills and qualifications when moving within and between EU Member States. Moreover, it is aimed to get feedback on the adequacy of the related European policies and instruments and on the potential benefits of developing a European Area of Skills and Qualifications. Since the consultation is very important for COM to feed into the discussion for the next steps, participants and stakeholders (from the field of education and training, but also civil society, learners, youth bodies) were invited to respond to the online survey - even if they are only able to answer parts of it, since the survey is very broad. It was however also emphasised that this is an open agenda. If the consultation leads to the conclusion that there is no need for a new initiative, COM would not launch one. Hence, the next steps taken will largely depend on the results to the consultation process. In that sense, the consultation process will provide a legitimation to further action. Action Points: Participants are encouraged to respond to the public consultation process and fill in the online survey. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/more_info/consultations/skills_en.htm The Background document to the EASQ is available here: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/education_culture/more_info/consultations/documents/skills-back_en.pdf Some group members showed interest to sit together with a sub-group, and discuss the background document to the EASQ and provide feedback. They were asked to confirm this interest in an e-mail to COM after the meeting. and opportunity for this will then be accommodated during the next meeting. From the view of the Member States, two amendments to the survey were asked: Translation of the survey it would promote the dissemination of the survey greatly if it was translated to national languages; Regarding the question from which point of view are you completing the survey? - Make sure it is possible to tick more than one education sector. 15.00 Entrepreneurship 360 COM gave an introduction to Entrepreneurship 360, a new tool that is being developed in collaboration with OECD. Entrepreneurship 360 will be a guidance framework, supporting the development of more entrepreneurial schools and VET institutions. This project is in a certain sense a result of the Thematic Working Group on Entrepreneurship Education 2011-2013. The group realised that factors such as preparing educators, engaging stakeholders, developing schools etc. are interrelated hence, in order to have an impact, one needs to have to look at the whole system. The type of interrelation can be characterised as an eco-system. This is already happening in some countries in Europe. The tool will go through a phase of extensive consultation with stakeholders. It is expected to have impact on entrepreneurial leadership, culture, teaching, learning and external engagement. A phased development process is foreseen: 2014: Design, development and pilot of draft tool 11

2015: Online development, peer learning opportunities, finalisation of tool, launch 2016: Embedding in policy The group will be regularly updated about the development of the tool and will be consulted at a later stage. 15.30 Action Points: Next steps 1) Online Portal for collaboration: COM stated that the collaborative online-portal to share information (presentations, good practice examples sent by MS etc.) will only be available in March. Until then, an online sharing account will be set up (by ICF GHK) to share information. Interest groups that may have formed around the policy experimentations or other topics are invited to carry on working/networking at their own means in the meantime. 2) Next meeting The next meeting is planned for 21-22 May 2014 (tbc). Start/end times of the second meeting will be similar to the first meeting. Main topics of the next meeting will be: European References Frameworks, digital competences, entrepreneurship; and an update on Entrepreneurship 360. 3) Webinars Before the second meeting two webinars will be held: One webinar will be held in March 2014 - a few days after the call for proposals to the policy experimentations has gone, with the aim to provide answers and guide MS through the applications; and Another webinar will be held end of April/beginning of May, to prepare the next face-to-face meeting. 16.00 Closing of day 2 and end of meeting: The European Commission thanked all participants for attending the meeting and wished them a safe trip home. 12