On 25th January the first EU Education Summit with 18 Education Ministers and 450 Experts took place in Brussels. The Education Summit is another step on the road to a European education space, which the Commission intends to create by 2025. In the future, European education summits will take place regularly - the second is scheduled for autumn 2019.

EU Commissioner Tibor Navracsics said: "We must harness the full potential of education to build stable societies, to empower citizens, to experience European identity in all its diversity. To achieve this, we want to promote language learning and ensure that degrees are recognized throughout the EU, that European higher education institutions can work together optimally and that studying in other EU Member States is even easier. These are factors that make up real European education space, and the Summit is a concrete step in that direction. "

The aim of the summit was to create: »the Foundation for a European Educational Space: Realizing Innovative, Inclusive and Value-Based Education«. Accordingly, the following questions are in the center of attention: How can high-quality, inclusive and value-based education contribute to the success of Europe? What skills will be needed in the coming decades? And how can the acquisition of basic skills as well as digital and entrepreneurial skills be advanced?

SIM Europe's most recent european-wide expert survey reveals lack of reform towards establishing lifelong learning in several EU countries. According to the experts, in ten countries, no reforms have been undertaken aimed at improving financial or human resources for lifelong learning. Moreover, the researchers see a great need for reform in many countries regarding the strong influence of social origin on educational success. Six countries were not active in this regard: Croatia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia and Spain.

One of Cedefop’s main priorities is to support EU Member States and social partners in further developing and improving vocational education and training (VET) and lifelong learning policies and practices. To be able to do this systematically, Cedefop has launched a series of policy learning forums on a range of subjects.

The aim is to establish a continuous process of sharing and learning where initial policy learning events are followed up through continued cooperation. Experts from 24 countries gathered in Thessaloniki on 24-25 September for the first forum, which addressed the way the learning outcomes principle and approach is used to define and describe VET qualifications across Europe.