Speech by Commissioner Ján Figel' on 'Closing the Investment Gap in Education and Training' at the UNICE Competitiveness Day

Sommaire: December 9, 2004: Ján Figel', Member of the European Commission responsible for Education, Training, Culture and Multilingualism, on "Closing the Investment Gap in Education and Training" UNICE Competitiveness Day: How can education and training be a tool to improve productivity (Brussels)

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I want to talk to you today about one particular aspect of the Lisbon Strategy and one particular aspect of competitiveness - knowledge.

Europe cannot compete on labour costs: we know that. Neither should we try to. In terms of GDP per hour worked, Europe actually performs well. But this is no guarantee for the future. To remain competitive, Europe must restructure in many areas, and one of them has to be knowledge. We cannot afford to leave knowledge out of the competitiveness equation.

By this I mean not just top-end knowledge, but upskilling and re-skilling at all levels to allow citizens to work longer and to be mobile in the job market. 80 million citizens in the EU are low skilled, yet it is estimated that only 15% of future jobs in the EU will be low-skilled. The challenge is obvious.

Let me give you an indication of the impact of knowledge on competitiveness.

According to estimates carried out for the Commission, an extra year at the intermediate level of education increases aggregate productivity by about 5% immediately and by a further 5% in the long term.

There is also solid evidence that better and more education leads to lower overall costs for society in terms of health and crime, for example.

To take another example, the best-performing Member State in international competitiveness tables is also the Member State which tops the table in the OECD's ongoing PISA study, which compares the quality of school education systems. I do not believe that this is mere coincidence.

One other interesting fact that comes out of PISA is this: it is not the Member State that spends most on its school education system that has the best results. Investment has to be efficient too.

The Treaty makes clear that Member States are primarily responsible for the content and structure of education and training systems. But there is great added value in action at European level.

For example, the Commission is making a major contribution to labour mobility by promoting mutual recognition of qualifications and through the mobility actions in its education and training programmes.

Concerning education and training, the Union also invests:

about 10 billion euros between 2000 and 2006 through the European Social Fund
more than 10 billion euros since 1997 through European Investment Bank.

But we can do more. We can make comparisons between the Union and its competitors, and we can do the same between Member States. That way, we can identify what works and what doesn't, what are the most effective ways of disseminating knowledge.

We can learn from one another in the Union. That is why the European Council approved the so-called "Education and Training 2010" Work Programme. We have agreed 5 benchmarks, or targets, to be achieved by 2010. They concern such things as the number of maths, science and technology graduates, the proportion of young people with upper secondary education and the proportion of the population participating in Life-long Learning.

We have developed a whole series of indicators to monitor progress and we have created expert working groups to deliver advice to policy makers on how to reach the targets.

In a nutshell, the situation today in education and training is that the current rate of progress is too slow if we are to achieve the targets set, but they still can be achieved if we pull our socks up.

But how do we compare to our international competitors? Let's look at total investment in education (as % of GDP, 2001 data).

Public sector: EU 5% (with large variations between Member States) v. US 5.1%, and Japan 3.6%.

So, we are not really behind here.

Private sector investment: EU (including new Member States) 0,6%, US 2.2% , Japan 1.2%.

It is true that we must invest efficiently, but we still have to invest. The bare fact is that companies - and maybe individuals - in Europe are not investing enough, particularly in higher education and in vocational training. This partly explains the productivity gap with the United States.

Private investments in education and training can take various forms.

Fiscal measures to encourage employer-financed training and the involvement of enterprises in continuing education.

Public-private partnerships for educational institutions,

Research projects or chairs for professors.

Sponsorships.

As far as Universities are concerned, I will present a Communication in May which will, amongst other things, look at the financing of Universities and how they may build partnerships with industry. In addition, one of the expert working groups I mentioned earlier is developing recommendations on the question of efficient use of resources in education and training systems as a whole.

One key skill is of course entrepreneurship. Everyone should learn how to set goals, manage plans, evaluate and communicate effectively, understand basic economics.

Here we can welcome the broad definition of entrepreneurship of UNICE: entrepreneurship is indeed a mindset that is needed in many situations and can be nurtured in the whole course of lifelong learning.

Let me close by saying that that, in my view, governments, the Commission and industry are in a partnership, a partnership for prosperity, solidarity and security. Let us work together to ensure that Europe's citizens have the skills that employers need, that they need and society as a whole needs.

Ref: SP04-302EN
Source UE: Commission Européenne
UN forum:
Date: 9/12/2004

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