The new educational programmes 2007-2013
In October 2006, the European Parliament adopted the Commission´s proposals for this new action programme in the field of education and training. After long negotations and many turns the programme finally seems ready to roll.
For the first time a single programme will cover learning opportunities from childhood to old age. The Lifelong Learning Programme will cover the period 2007-2013, and is the successor to the current Socrates, Leonardo da Vinci and eLearning programmes. It has a budget of € 7 bn to support projects and activities that foster interchange, cooperation and mobility between education and training systems within the EU. The suggested mobility targets for adult education are still in place, only drastically reduced in numbers.Lifelong Learning Programme is the title of a structure that is built on four pillars, or sub-programmes. Grants and subsidies will be awarded to projects under each of these that enhance the transnational mobility of individuals, promote bilateral and multilateral partnerships, or improve quality in education and training systems through multilateral projects encouraging innovation, for example. The four pillars are:
1. The Comenius programme (€ 1,047 million) addresses the teaching and learning needs of all those in pre-school and school education up to the level of the end of upper secondary education, and the institutions and organisations providing such education;
2. The Erasmus programme (€ 3,114 million) addresses the teaching and learning needs of all those in formal higher education, including transnational student placements in enterprise, and the institutions and organisations providing or facilitating such education and training;
3. The Leonardo da Vinci programme (€ 1,725 million) addresses the teaching and learning needs of all those in vocational education and training, including placement in enterprise of persons other than students, as well as the institutions and organisations providing or facilitating such education and training;
4. The Grundtvig programme (€ 358 million) addresses the teaching and learning needs of those in all forms of adult education, as well as the institutions and organisations providing or facilitating such education.
These four pillars are joined by what will be known as a transversal programme (€ 369 million), which will pursue the following four key activities:
- policy cooperation and innovation in lifelong learning;
- promotion of language learning;
- development of innovative ICT-based content, services, pedagogies and practice for lifelong learning;
- dissemination and exploitation of results of actions supported under the Lifelong Learning Programme and previous related programmes, and exchange of good practice.
Finally, these actions will be complemented by the new Jean Monnet programme (€ 170 million), which supports institutions and activities in the field of European integration. The implementation of the Lifelong Learning Programme has been allocated a budget of € 6 970 million for the period of the 7 years from 1 January 2007 to end December 2013.
