The Education, Youth and Culture Council meeting that recently took place produced the last amendments to and adoption of the final conclusions on the Commission Communication of 22 February 2007 entitled “A coherent framework of indicators and benchmarks for monitoring progress towards the Lisbon objectives in education and training” (see March ACA Newsletter-Education Europe). The conclusions are easier to read than the original Communication on the indicators, but still, a deep knowledge of its many preceding documents is needed. The highlights of these conclusions are:

• as expressed in our March newsletter, the “five European benchmarks” continue to be relevant for guiding policy actions;
• as reported in our April newsletter, a European survey on language competences will inspire the creation of a European indicator of language competence. This survey must ensure coverage of all official European languages taught in the Union;
• out of the 20 “core-indicators” presented for consideration, 16 were accepted for further development.

The 16 core indicators accepted were: participation in pre-school education, special needs education, early school leavers, literacy in reading, mathematics and science, language skills, ICT skills, civic skills, learning to learn skills, upper secondary completion rates, professional development of teachers and trainers, higher education graduates, cross-national mobility of students in higher education, participation of adults in lifelong learning, adult’s skills, educational attainment of the population, and investment in education and training. The four indicators left behind were: school management, schools as multi-purpose local learning centres, stratification of education and training systems, and the returns to education and training.

Council conclusions
Communication