A4-0405/97

Resolution on the Commission's report on access to continuing training in the Union (COM(97)0180 - C4-0208/97)

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the Commission's report (COM(97)0180 - C4-0208/97),

- having regard to the report of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and the opinions of the Committee on Women's Rights and the Committee on Culture, Youth, Education and the Media (A4-0405/97),

A. whereas the Commission's report is the first systematic attempt to analyse and compare situations in Member States and assess progress achieved in this field,

B. whereas, however, the national reports on which the Commission report is based fail to provide sufficient quantitative and qualitative information on the different approaches, schemes and resources which can be found in the Member States to promote workers' access to continuing training,

C. whereas statistical information dating back to 1993 indicates that the main factors influencing the degree of workers' access to training are company size, production sector, age and country,

D. whereas these data regrettably do not include sample surveying in several major employment sectors such as public administration, health and education which are important sectors in many Member States, particularly for women,

E. whereas the Commission has not used this opportunity to evaluate the contribution made by EU programmes and initiatives, in particular the ADAPT initiative and the European Year of Lifelong Learning, to facilitating access to continuing training,

F. whereas access to continuing training should also be considered in close relation to policies aimed at increasing the employability of and facilitating the acquisition of skills by the active population, promoting lifelong learning and improving the competitiveness of enterprises;

G. whereas initiatives promoting access to continuing training should be part of a wider policy framework aimed at combining training opportunities for the employed with training-related work experiences for the unemployed,

H. whereas this requires concertation at all levels, including European Union level, between those responsible for these different policies,

I. whereas consensus seems to exist among all parties on the need to establish a permanent reporting system on access to continuing training,

J. welcoming the fact that the social partners at European level agree on the importance of the following factors for the promotion of access to continuing training:

- the provision of guidance systems,

- the dissemination of good practice,

- a good and broad foundation of knowledge and generic skills upon which flexible and new skills can be developed,

- the need to give special attention to assisting SMEs and individuals with limited skills,

- the shared responsibility for training between employers, employees and national governments,

- the development of new methods of training using information and communication technologies,

- the improvement of accreditation and recognition systems to allow vocational and geographical mobility,

- the collection of more reliable and analytical data from Member States,

- a more efficient and coordinated use of European resources,

K. whereas, however, they disagree on the type of action which should be taken to improve these factors and on the level at which action should be taken,

L. whereas this is a serious obstacle to the implementation of the first action guideline put forward by the Commission, i.e. the establishment by the European social partners at Community level of common conditions for facilitating access,

M. whereas the second action guideline, i.e. making the access report a regular feature, cannot be pursued without the establishment at European Union level of common performance indicators,

N. whereas the third action guideline, i.e. the financing of pilot projects specifically geared to the question of access to training, should be considered in the framework of the forthcoming debate on the future of the Union's education and training programmes,

1. Supports further monitoring of the trends in the labour market with a view to identifying shifting or changing requirements for skills in the labour force; notes that monitoring is of paramount importance for formulating policies for continuing vocational training;

2. Supports the adoption at European Union level of common qualitative and quantitative indicators with a view to establishing a permanent monitoring and reporting system on access to training and suggests that EUROSTAT and CEDEFOP could play a role in implementing this; calls on the Commission to present proposals to that effect;

3. Notes that more importance should be attached to a precise definition and clear delimitation of topics in order to ensure that the results in the individual countries can be compared;

4. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to pay particular attention to the implications of continuing training policies for working women when drawing up the next report;

5. Believes that further action research should be carried out in relation to the quantity and quality of training made available to the unemployed and to underqualified workers, including older workers, and urges the Commission to make this information available in an early communication;

6. Calls on the Commission to bring forward concrete proposals with the objective of identifying and disseminating more widely good practices, experience and know-how developed with the assistance of Community resources and programmes or by Member States themselves, in particular by means of 'access to training and education fairs¨ to be held throughout the Union for the benefit of trainers, trainees, employers, trade unions and policy-makers;

7. Feels that the social partners at European and national level should be involved in the organization of these fairs, given the responsibility they share with public authorities for the provision of access to continuing training;

8. Calls on the Commission to fund in a coherent and coordinated manner under the European Social Fund, notably Article 6 of the ESF Regulation and the ADAPT initiative, and within the Leonardo da Vinci Programme, pilot projects on the provision of assessment and guidance services and the development of skill forecasting systems;

9. Considers that vocational training should be geared to equal treatment of men and women in the labour market, that non-discriminatory access to training should be ensured and that women's occupational diversification should be promoted by positive action;

10. Insists that vocational training should be made more accessible to women by taking their particular conditions into consideration (like care responsibilities, atypical, seasonal and particularly part-time work), which could be achieved through more intensive targeting and creating special courses which are adjusted to women's requirements and needs;

11. In particular, insists that access to vocational training and life-long learning should be improved for women working in SMEs and women entrepreneurs with the aim of encouraging women to start their own businesses and of providing women with the skills required to take full advantage of new technology in the workplace;

12. Takes the view that, in the light of the draft employment guidelines issued by the Commission and the conclusions of the Employment European Council of 21 Novmber 1997, access to continuing training cannot be considered in isolation from other employment-related issues, such as working time and work organization, and therefore calls on the Commission to step up its efforts towards greater coordination between the initiatives taken and policies pursued by the departments responsible for these two policy fields;

13. Is of the opinion that this should result also in a more concerted approach between labour market-related programmes (e.g. the European Social Fund) and training-related programmes (Leonardo da Vinci);

14. Calls on the Commission to take the above imperative into account during the debate on the future of Structural Funds and on the extension of the education and training programmes;

15. Calls on the social partners to reach an agreement on some of the issues of common concern identified in this resolution and believes that, if no agreement is reached within a reasonable time, the Commission should bring forwards proposals of its own based upon Article 127 of the EC Treaty;

16. Welcomes the fact that the Commission in its proposed employment guidelines calls on the social partners to conclude as soon as possible a framework agreement to open up the workplace for training; takes the view, however, that this should be linked directly with initiatives aimed at modernizing work organization;

17. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Commission, the Council for social affairs and the Council for Education, the Economic and Social Committee and the social partners at European level.