Promising approaches to European investment in education & training

(BRUSSELS) - An expert report published Wednesday by the Commission focuses on how to best invest public money in four major areas of education: teachers, infrastructure, digital learning and inclusion.

The final report of the Expert Group on Quality Investment in Education and Training, "Investing in our future: quality investment in education and training" focuses on teachers and trainers, education infrastructure, digital learning, and equity and inclusion.

The expert group identifies promising education and training practices in national contexts, which can serve as inspiration for governments and education institutions across the EU. These include initiatives to reduce teachers' work-related stress, promote their well-being, and raise their pedagogical digital competences; one-to-one tuition and peer tutoring programmes; school building and renovation programmes to increase the quality of facilities; and quality early childhood education and care.

"We need to ensure that all young Europeans receive the best education possible," saids Education Commissioner Mariya Gabriel: "Promoting quality investment in education and training is a key political priority for the European Union and is essential to achieving the European Education Area by 2025."

The findings of this report would feed into the work at the Commission, she added, in order top make "the best possible use of the resources we have available".

Findings also underline the importance of evaluating education policies within each country, which in turn could guide future investment decisions for the benefit of students, teachers and the whole education community.

While the education and training systems differ from country to country, EU Member States face common challenges in education and training. At a moment when the EU channels more funding than ever into education and training, the report also highlights the challenges that must be overcome to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of spending and in which common approaches might be beneficial:

• The lack of solid data on the impact of targeted investments on actual learning outcomes. More evidence is needed, and the Commission says it is ready to work on this by supporting education policy evaluation.
• There is a need to develop more robust evaluations of national education policies in general. This includes a need for expertise on evaluation methods among policy makers, and disseminate findings at EU level.

To improve quality investment in education and training in the EU, the Commission says it will launch before the end of this year a new initiative to put flexible but targeted tools, methods, and expertise at the disposal of Member States, to support them in the evaluation of their education policies.

Commission Expert Group on Quality Investment in education and training

Investing in our future: quality investment in education and training