COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels, 02.10.1996 
C< >M(%) 471 final 
COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION 
TO THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, 
THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE 
AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS 
LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY 
Action plan for a European education initiative 
(1996-98) 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 
INTRODUCTION 5 
I THE RATIONALE BEHIND A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE 6 
II ACTION PLAN FOR THE EUROPEAN INITIATIVE 7 
11.1 Action lineN°l: Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a 
Community level 8 
11.2 Action line N°2: Stimulate the development and dissemination of contents of 
European interest which can be used for educational purposes 11 
11.3 Action lineN°3: Promote training and support for teachers and trainers in the 
use of new technology in teaching methods 12 
11.4 Action line N°4: Inform players about the educational opportunities afforded by 
multimedia 14 
HI MOBILISING RESOURCES AND PROMOTING PRIVATE/PUBLIC 
PARTNERSHIPS 15 
III. 1 Making use of Community resources 15 
111.2 Promoting public/private partnerships 16 
111.3 Encouraging the involvement of citizen and the emergence of talent 17 
CONCLUSION 18 
APPENDICES: 
Recent national and European public initiatives for multimedia education in schools 19 
Proposed Timetable 1996-1998 21 
? - ?~ 4 
INTRODUCTION 
Against a background of trade globalisation, technological innovation and economic 
upheaval, every society is confronted with profound changes. Europeans must be 
prepared to cope with this situation and their education systems must help them to do 
so. 
With the emergence of the information society, everyone must upgrade their skills 
constantly and obtain new qualifications . 
Tomorrow, jobs are at stake, therefore it is why it is important for the tools of the 
information society to be deployed in new learning methods. These priorities were 
restated by the Commission in the White Paper on Teaching and learning: towards the 
knowledge-based society and the European confidence pact for employment presented 
to the European Council in Florence in June 1996. 
Political leaders at both Community and national level now realise how much of an 
educational and cultural challenge the information society presents. Within the 
Commission the Research-Industry Task Force on "Educational Software and 
Multimedia" has set about analysing educational multimedia and their market and uses. 
Its work has given rise to a set of recommendations aimed at reinforcing research 
activities in this field and facilitating the distribution of educational multimedia whilst 
taking into account the needs of users, by mobilising and coordinating the use of the 
numerous instruments at its disposal . 
The European Education Ministers meeting in the Council on 6 May 1996 gave a clear 
political signal to the Commission and the Member States by adopting a Resolution 
encouraging the use of educational technology in partnership with the private sector. 
In Europe and throughout the world many countries, such as the United Kingdom, 
Germany, France, Italy, the Nordic countries and also the United Sates and Japan, have 
recently launched initiatives to connect schools to communication networks, train 
teachers and develop software to meet pedagogical needs (cf. Appendix). The private 
sector is also gearing up to equip and network schools in partnership with the 
authorities. 
Considerable technological advances have been made with regard to their user-
friendliness, the pedagogical requirements are clearer and are better understood. Many 
See document produced by the Round Table of Industrialists on "Education for Europeans : Towards the 
Learning Society" 
See the following documents: White Paper "Growth, competitiveness and employment" (1993); "Towards the 
information society in Europe: an action plan" COM(94) 347; Green Paper on innovation (1996); Green Paper 
"People first: living and working in the information society" (1996). 
Final report of July 1996 SEC(96)1426/final. On this basis, the Commission will launch a call for joint proposals on 
15 December 1996 for all programmes involving educational multimedia. 
Such as Deutsche Telekom and Bertelsmann as part of the German initiative, the association of cable operators in 
the UK and Apple, which is setting up pilot classes in five European countries. 
5 
teachers are ready to experiment with the new educational tools. The stage is set for 
widespread use of technology in education and training and we now need to create an 
environment conducive to its being disseminated through a range of concrete actions at 
European level to support national and local initiatives. 
It is with this in mind that the European Council in Florence supported this initiative and 
asked the Commission to draw up a plan of action as soon as possible. 
I THE RATIONALE BEHIND A EUROPEAN INITIATIVE 
A variety of research and pilot experiments have shown the value of information society 
technologies and multimedia for teaching. As long as they are geared to people's needs, 
these tools help them to acquire new knowledge and help to develop new, flexible 
customised and interactive learning methods. They increase the range of education and 
training facilities and offer more widespread access to them. 
They can also encourage personal and pedagogical exchanges and, indeed by 
encouraging intercultural and multilingual communication between 72 million pupils 
and students and 4.5 million teachers throughout Europe, information society 
technologies and multimedia are likely to enhance the European dimension in education 
and European integration through teaching and learning exchanges. 
However, there are still many obstacles to the widespread use of these tools. 
Educational establishments do not have enough equipment of sufficient quality. 
Multimedia "content" available on the market often fails to cater for the pedagogical 
needs. The establishments' capacity for funding equipment is restricted by severe 
budgetary constraints. Finally, the new tools cannot be integrated into teaching practices 
until the teachers have been trained and teaching methods and systems have been 
adjusted, which is often a delicate exercise. 
It is the duty of education and training establishments to help young people to find a 
place in the information society by avoiding a situation where only the children of the 
most privileged families and schools will reap the benefits of educational multimedia. 
Education and training establishments and, in the longer term, employment and social 
cohesion in Europe will pay a high price for increasingly inequitable access to these 
new practices. 
The European multimedia industry could be severely affected if the number of users and 
producers is too small. After all, this is a sector which has considerable potential in 
terms of the development of new products and services, rapid growth, and employment 
creation. Europe counts among its many assets, its cultural heritage, major intellectual 
and financial resources and considerable technical expertise which should be exploited 
by multimedia companies in the European market. 
If this opportunity is missed, our increased dependence on pedagogical and cultural 
content originating from its main competitors outside Europe would be particularly 
damaging for the cultural identity and linguistic diversity of the Community. 
The European initiative will reinforce the concerted efforts that have already begun in 
several regions and countries of the Community, thus following the guidelines laid 
down by the Council Resolution on educational multimedia software. 
It aims to strengthen the impetus of the often fragmented activities at national level by 
coordinating them and by focusing on those actions which present the greatest benefits 
for the Community as a whole and, in full respect of the principle of subsidiarity, take 
into account the different levels of development between the regions. The initiative will 
help to mobilise a large enough number of users more rapidly, reinforce the European 
dimension of pedagogical exchanges and create a genuine European educational 
multimedia market. 
In this field, a well-targeted approach to Community actions is vital to achieve 
maximum effect given the limited financial resources. The current Action Plan focuses 
on primary and secondary schools (including vocational schools), the weak links in 
the educational chain in terms of the use of these practices since they are far less 
widespread than in higher education or vocational training. 
Nonetheless, it is important to underline the need to give a life-long perspective to 
education, from the school to vocational training. The use of new technologies in 
vocational training, however, involves other actors and other responsibilities. This issue 
will be dealt with in a further Communication which will soon be presented by the 
Commission in the light of comments received in the course of the debate launched by 
the publication of the Green Paper "Living and Working in the Information Society: 
People First". 
II. PLAN OF ACTION FOR THE EUROPEAN INITIATIVE 
The initiative has 3 main objectives: 
-» To accelerate schools' entry into the information society by giving them new means of 
access to the world. 
•* To encourage widespread application of multimedia pedagogical practices and the 
forming of a critical mass of users, products and educational multimedia services 
•* To reinforce the European dimension of education and training with the tools of the 
information society whilst enhancing cultural and linguistic diversity 
In order to achieve these general aims the initiative will pursue four additional action 
lines to support local and national initiatives . 
The initiative will come under the European Commission's responsibilities laid down by the Treaty on European 
Union in the fields of education and training, regional cohesion, industry, technological research and development 
and trans-European communications networks. 
7 
THE COURSES OF ACTION 
1. Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a Community level 
2. Stimulate the development and dissemination of content 
3. Promote training and support for teachers and trainers 
4. Informing all the parties involved about the pedagogical opportunities afforded by 
multimedia 
The Initiative could be supported by a small group of high level figures, chosen on the 
basis of their vision and conviction, whose role, as the "champions" of the Initiative, 
would be to give it extra momentum. 
II. 1 Action line N°T. 
Encourage the interconnection of school networks at a Community level 
(i) Context 
Experimental electronic schools networks have been set up at regional or local level but 
are fragmented in their distribution here and there experimentally. These enable 
electronic mail to be transmitted, cooperation (on producing thematic databases, 
practical comparative work and joint products incorporating text and images) to be 
learned andyôra to be organised for both pupils and teachers to exchange information, 
advice and practices. 
The experiments under way clearly show the educational potential which can be 
expected: users' access to the outside world, more freedom to search for information, 
writing is more rewarding (by writing for somebody), there is a sense of collective effort 
in work on subjects of common interest, such as the environment, society, art and 
current affairs, and users become familiar with cultural and linguistic differences, be 
they regional (such as the differences between rural and urban life) or national 
(linguistic exchanges and questions and answers on social and political life, etc.). 
The interconnection of regional and national school networks could make a significant 
contribution to the teaching of subjects such as languages, science, history, or art, which 
would most benefit from a European approach. As they develop, these networks should 
allow schools to use electronic information produced by museums and other cultural 
and educational institutions. 
The number of schools in existing networks is still small - less than 5% of European 
schools had access to an electronic schools network or to the Internet in mid-1996 . 
Moreover, there is still very little European-wide communication, partly because there 
are technical or language problems but mainly because they do not know enough about 
the experiments conducted in other Member States. 
6 The situation varies greatly from one country to another: two-thirds of schools are connected to networks in Finland 
and in Sweden but only 15% in the United Kingdom and less than 2% in France or Germany. 
8 
The current wave of connecting schools to the Internet, which has come about 
spontaneously or has been encouraged by the authorities, could soon subside rapidly due 
to technical problems caused by short-term saturation of the Internet network or because 
of a lack of awareness on the part of educationalists of the pedagogical benefit of the 
new techniques. 
Furthermore, the Commission supports the extension of "public access" to the 
Information Society. This includes especially the connection of schools, universities and 
libraries. Preparatory work is already underway, both at Community and national levels, 
with the aim of promoting access to communications and information services in the 
field of education7. 
The interconnection of schools networks will enable innovatory teaching practices to be 
exchanged between European classes. This process will enable cultural and linguistic 
diversity to be expressed and will integrate pilot projects aimed at creating a 
pedagogical environment which is conducive to innovation, be it local, European or 
international . 
Difficulties arising from communication in different languages should neither be 
ignored nor overestimated: indeed, schools benefit from a privileged environment for 
the learning of languages, and multimedia provides a versatile means of communication 
using sound and image which can greatly facilitate mutual understanding. 
This approach will go hand-in-hand with the development of local schools networks and 
will be a gradual process, the aim being to connect all schools in Europe, including 
those in the most disadvantaged areas. 
(ii) Implementation 
Projects aimed at interconnecting schools networks will be launched in the aftermath 
of the "European Year of Lifelong Learning". The initiative will be based on the 
networks which are already well-established at local and regional level and establish 
contact between them. This "network of networks" will progressively be extended to all 
school networks, either existing or in the pipeline, and to geographically isolated or 
socially disadvantaged schools, thus supporting the "twinning" activities between towns 
and regions of Europe. 
The initiative will be underpinned by the policies conducted by local, regional and 
national authorities, which have the final say in equipping schools and which can apply 
for aid from the Structural Funds in the eligible regions. The initiative will also build on 
experimental projects under Community technological research and development, 
education and training programmes. 
"Universal service for telecommunications in perspective of a fully liberalised environment" COM(96) 73 final, cf 
also the initiative of the British telecommunications office Oftel to create a Task Force on Education in the process 
of consultation on the universal service. 
Examples of these are the projects resulting from Community programmes or the "Cross-cultural education and 
training" project launched at the G7 Summit in Brussels on the information society. 
9 
The "network of schools networks" will be open to experiments conducted in Third 
countries, in particular the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. 
Several types of activities are necessary: 
• The Commission will also promote experimental educational environments 
involving a limited number of establishments to explore further research on the 
interaction between technology and teaching, mainly for developing cooperative 
working tools in networks. 
• The Commission will encourage the creation and interconnection of multimedia 
discovery classes, like those which have already been set up and networked in some 
countries , and enable teachers and pupils to devise teaching projects using 
multimedia and to familiarise themselves with the use of new technology at specially 
equipped sites. These sites could also offer remote counselling services for teachers. 
• A conference will be organised before the end of 1996 to take stock of developments 
in national schools networks, as well as the needs, practices and difficulties 
encountered (technological, legal, financial, etc.). The conference will be attended by 
people involved in local, regional and national initiatives (teachers, computer 
companies, network operators, on-line service providers head teachers and 
associations). 
One workshop will examine questions linked to the copyrights of multimedia 
products to promote their pedagogical utilisation as well as security questions 
regarding the use of the Internet by school networks (e.g. violent, racial or 
pornographic contents, paedophilia). 
• Technical scenarios for the interconnection of schools networks at Community level 
(the infrastructures used could be the automatic telephone network, integrated service 
digital network or broadband research networks providing access to Internet), the 
costs involved and suitable financing mechanisms will be identified in a feasibility 
study, on the basis of the results of the conference. 
The management of the project to interconnect regional and national schools 
networks at Community level could be entrusted to a consortia, bringing together 
Education Ministries as well as local and regional authorities and companies 
concerned . 
Furthermore, the Commission will examine experiments in progress in the countries 
of the Community and its main partners to extend the field of application for the 
universal telecommunications service for linking education and training 
establishments. The results will be used to formulate proposals in a report which the 
An example of this in France is the "Mmultimedia interactive teaching" project of the Ligue Française de 
l'Enseignement et de l'Education Permanente. 
The regions are particularly involved in information society activities. For example, six regions committed 
themselves in 1994 to develop telematics applications (The IRIS initiative) 
10 
Commission will present before the end of 1997 on the level, quality and extent of 
the universal telecommunications service. 
II.2 Action line N°2: 
Stimulate the development and dissemination of content of European interest 
which can be used for educational purposes 
(i) Context 
Existing schools' networks can enhance educational exchanges within groups of pupils, 
between pupils and teachers and between teachers. They also enable teaching resources 
for conducting these exchanges to be transferred. It is therefore important to encourage 
the development and dissemination of "contents" which lend themselves to these. 
Each medium still has its own creation, production and distribution methods. However, 
with the development of digital technologies, audiovisual or paper products can easily 
be transferred to electronic media (CD-Rom, CD-I or on-line service). All the same, the 
content and narrative structure of the products often has to be considerably re-organised 
for multimedia production. It is vital for audiovisual, multimedia production and 
education professionals to cooperate to take full advantage of these capacities. 
Opportunities for developing content will multiply with the arrival of large numbers of 
digital television channels. Educational and cultural broadcasts ought to be highly 
successful, given the public's expectations and demands. As the use of television is 
widespread, audiovisual products could constitute the ideal vehicle for educational 
multimedia in schools and homes. 
Such audiovisual products could be either educational broadcasts designed to meet 
specific training aims, or high-level information or quality broadcasts for the general 
public which teachers feel can be incorporated in their teaching syllabus. 
Many broadcasters have already integrated "continuity of use" in their strategy by 
adopting a multi-product approach, like educational television in Sweden or the BBC, 
which regularly distributes video cassettes made from its broadcasts. This approach is 
now being extended to take advantage of digital technology. The BBC is producing CD-
ROMs on Shakespearean theatre from its audiovisual productions. In France, Channel 5 
is digitalizing many of the programmes which it broadcasts in order to build up a 
repertoire. This will be available for consultation by institutional users depending on 
their specific needs. The technical issues have virtually all been settled now but legal 
problems remain. 
Several broadcasters favour the inclusion of a European dimension in their commercial 
strategy. Indeed, fourteen public members of the European Broadcasting Union have 
decided to promote the exchange of European cultural programmes by sharing 
11 
programming through common broadcasting pool. Plans by a number of European 
broadcasters for a European education channel are also on the drawing board11. 
(ii) Implementation 
The following actions are envisaged: 
• There are many ways of both producing and disseminating audiovisual and 
multimedia contents. In order to examine these, a working group made up of high-
level representatives of producers and distributors of educational programmes and 
multimedia productions will be formed by the end of 1996. 
Its mission will be to explore opportunities for cooperation in the production of 
general educational content (learning of languages, science, culture and European 
civilisation, arts, music, etc.) which caters for the needs of European education and 
training. It will have to lay down the general principles governing the quality and 
exchange of educational products and examine the technical and legal conditions for 
their use by schools or other educational and cultural institutions in order to promote 
the dissemination of such content. 
• The Commission will provide support for an inventory of European multimedia 
products which can be used for teaching through various media (educational 
broadcasts, CD-ROM, CD-I and on-line services). Results of this survey will be 
widely distributed. 
• Finally, the Commission through its support for concrete projects will promote the 
development and electronic networking of multimedia resource centres (such as 
multimedia libraries, teacher training centres and on-line "digital libraries") with 
which users can gain access to a wide range of European multimedia and audiovisual 
products and services. 
II.3 Action line N°3: 
Promote training and support for teachers and trainers in the use of new 
technology in their teaching methods 
(i) Context 
Teaching methods are always evolving. What are known as "active" teaching methods 
are already widely used in language teaching, which has long used audiovisual media. 
Many teachers are open to innovation but do not always get sufficient encouragement or 
institutional support to experiment and validate new teaching methods. This is 
compounded by confusion as to how the new tools are to be used. Simply to get them to 
work, newcomers often have to invest more time than the majority of teachers are able 
to do on their own. 
Many educational audiovisual experiments are being carried out in other countries. In Israel, time slots for 
educational purposes are allocated on all channels, including commercial channels, rather than an educational 
channel proper being created. In Canada, public television channels are obliged to broadcast at least one programme 
a week for reuse for teaching purposes. 
12 
Where the technologies have been introduced success fully they have been used to 
support new teaching methods which largely leave the initiative in the hands of pupils 
and teams. The teachers' role is thus slightly different. They have to learn to supervise 
and organise groups of pupils whilst monitoring and assessing individual progress. 
One of the key factors in successful integration and dissemination of multimedia in 
teaching methods is to prepare the teaching staff properly and to ensure that technical 
support is available when new tools are being used. Such training is one of the priorities 
in the Member States' initiatives (such as in "Multimedia in teacher training" in the 
Netherlands and the work carried out by the National Council for Educational 
Technology in the United Kingdom. Many experimental projects have already been 
launched and the results and methods used should now be promoted at a Community 
level. 
(ii) Implementation 
Practical, on-the-job experimentation appears to be the most promising way of training 
teachers. Training activities have to accompany the development of schools networks 
and, in the long term, must be aimed at a large number of teachers, and trainers, and 
thus take advantage of the similarity between different methods. 
Training covers the use of tools (equipment, services and software), searching for and 
structuring information from the networks, and design and distribution of multimedia 
teaching materials. It is underpinned by educational and technical support services to 
help teachers use multimedia in the classroom once they have been trained. It concerns 
the following: 
• To step up training activities under the Community programmes. The 
Commission will encourage exchanges of teachers between European schools in 
order to enable them to compare notes and, for less experienced teachers, to 
familiarise themselves with using multimedia in a classroom situation. In order to 
involve as many teachers as possible, the project will also encourage the development 
of distance learning courses to enable teachers to gain such experience without 
having to travel to the course. 
• To ensure that the results of discussion and experiments conducted at national level 
can be of benefit to the whole teaching profession. A network of training centres 
for teachers and trainers will build on local and national initiatives and current 
12 
Community projects to enable good practice to be disseminated at European level. 
12 Such as the "Trends" (Telematic applications programme), "Fetiche" (Socrates programme) and "Web for Schools" 
(information technologies programme) projects. 
13 
II.4 Action line N°4: 
Inform those concerned about the educational opportunities afforded by new 
technologies 
(i) Context 
Networking schools and encouraging the development of educational content are 
important but are not in themselves sufficient. For the use of educational multimedia to 
become more widespread, teachers need to be better informed, since they are 
responsible for the evolution of their teaching methods, along with head teachers and 
policy-makers. The latter must be particularly aware of the need to create an 
environment which is conducive to multimedia learning. 
Sources of information on the use of multimedia and educational audiovisual products 
are few and far between. They are difficult to access at Community level and often at 
national level too. However, in Europe, many sites have been created on the Internet 
presenting teaching projects using new technics. Databases on educational technologies, 
software, multimedia services and audiovisual products also exist and are being created 
in several Member States and at the Commission. 
By simplifying access to this information, the education sector can be kept better 
informed giving teachers and administrators the opportunity to discuss the situation and 
to draw up some practical guidelines. 
(ii) Implementation 
The linking of various Internet sites and databases created in the Member States will 
help improve access to information on ongoing projects and on educational multimedia 
and audiovisual resources in Europe. 
That means: 
• The Commission will, with the support of the Member States, help to create a 
platform for the exchange of information accessible on the Internet. 
This platform will offer a guide to the various sites on the Internet presenting projects 
in progress in the Community and databases in the Member States for the special 
attention of players in education and training sector and the multimedia and 
audiovisual industries. This guide will make it easier to obtain precise information 
on, for example, the creation of schools' networks, software, reviews of tools and 
13 
practices in the Member States and procedures for testing and purchasing 
equipment and software at preferential rates. 
The platform will also provide a site for discussions between teachers, educationalists 
and managers of educational establishments. 
13 See, for example, the experiments conducted in Germany with the SOD1S database, in the United Kingdom at the 
National Council for Educational Technology and the French National Educational Ministry's project to produce a 
catalogue of digital resources. 
14 
A feasibility study will be carried out to establish the technical specifications for the 
networking of existing databases and servers and creating a multilingual platform on 
the Internet. 
Teachers and administrators who have not yet used telematic networks also need to 
be informed. The Community will use traditional media (leaflets, radio and 
television broadcasts, and conferences) to inform about ongoing experiments, 
exhibitions, meetings and useful contacts. 
III. MOBILISING RESOURCES AND PROMOTING PRIVATE/PUBLIC 
PARTNERSHIPS 
The success of the Initiative depends on the large-scale involvement of public and 
private agents of the educational multimedia sector in partnerships at a European, 
national or regional level or in awareness-raising activities aimed at spreading the 
message as widely as possible and to encourage the participation of citizens and the 
emergence of talent. The Commission will support activities conducted in the Member 
States whilst respecting the principle of subsidiarity and the different stages of 
development between the regions. It will promote interaction between the various 
actions and their mutual enhancement through the four courses of action outlined above. 
III.l Making use of Community resources 
The Initiative will take advantage of the complementarity both between Community 
instruments and with national actions which it will coordinate through joint calls for 
proposals following the recommendations of the Task Force "Educational Software and 
Multimedia", each instrument being used in accordance with its own rules. The first call 
for proposals of this type should be launched on 15 December 1996 and will cover the 
following programmes: 
• telematics applications, information technologies, targeted socio-economic research, 
through experimental projects or accompanying measures 
• MEDIA II and INFO 2000 for development of multimedia content, 
• Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci for education and training. 
• funds allocated to trans-European networks for the deployment of multimedia 
applications for education and training purposes 
The Initiative will also encourage the full utilisation of the funding opportunities 
afforded by: 
• the Structural Funds in the education and training sector (including the equipment of 
education and training establishments in eligible regions14. This can be done to the extent 
Spain is currently preparing regional plans for equipping schools. 
15 
that Member States programming documents cover the objectives of this initiative 
and once the procedures set out in the Structural Fund Regulations have been followed. 
funds intended for the promotion of the information society. 
III.2 Promoting public/private partnerships 
Equipping schools with multimedia and audiovisual tools, developing teaching 
resources and providing training and logistic support for teachers will require a solid 
collective effort. In some countries of the Community and in the United States, 
partnerships between the private and public sectors are already in place to develop the 
use of new technologies in education and vocational training . These provide schools 
with the opportunity to benefit from opening up more to the business community. 
These actions will aim to: 
Encourage the dissemination of best practices in terms of the launching of projects 
(mechanisms and management) based on; 
Facilitate the forging of permanent partnerships between the public and private 
sectors. They will be responsible for adopting suitable means of financing equipment, 
services and software tailored to the needs and financial constraints of education and 
training establishments, whilst meeting the partners' needs. 
A workshop on public-private partnership will be organised at the beginning of 1997. 
This will be attended by representatives of associations, public authorities and 
enterprises and will encourage them to sign "Memoranda of Understanding" to join 
forces on the basis of common principles for cooperation. 
In order to put these "Memoranda of Understanding" into practice, the workshop will 
also examine the possibility of the public and private players in the educational 
multimedia sector and network operators forming a non-profit European body, such as 
a private Foundation, whose legal structure is yet to be determined. 
This body would act as a point of reference and of dialogue between actors at a 
European level. Its task would be to encourage the setting up of new partnerships in 
Member States and in the regions and to bring together existing federations. The 
Commission could support contacts between those concerned to coordinate their 
activities with the help of the Member States. 
Associations such as Campo in Italy, Schulen ans Netz in Germany, Forum in France and Fimmbo in the 
Netherlands have been created for vocational training in Europe. Initiatives of this type have also been launched for 
schools in the United States. 
16 
III.3 Encouraging the involvement of citizen and the emergence of talent 
The Commission will launch information and communication events and campaigns 
with a view to raising awareness of the benefits of educational multimedia in the 
education sector in collaboration with all the actors in the sector, multimedia enterprises 
and network operators. Higher education establishments could also be associated . 
Two types of events will be organised every year: 
• "Action Days or Week-Ends for school networking" will highlight activities and 
the state of play with regard to the electronic networking of schools. Enterprises and 
organisations will be asked to sponsor schools in various ways and to provide the 
logistic support required to put new schools on-line. The European Action Days will 
provide a framework for an "Open Days" events inviting schools to highlight their 
multimedia activities and inform parents, pupils, school heads and local authorities. 
The events will take place on the week-end following the European day (9 May). 
• A European award scheme for the best educational multimedia products (with 
the attribution of a European label) created in partnership between young people and 
teachers will be organised regularly with the support of the Commission, following 
on from the experiences of the "European Year of Lifelong Learning". The aim is to 
encourage schools to produce and disseminate multimedia "content" on-line and to 
introduce talented young people to producers. 
17 
CONCLUSION 
Europeans will have to learn to use the new information and communication tools from 
an early age if they are to find a place for themselves in an increasingly knowledge-
based society. Upon this will depend their employment prospects and their future as 
indicated in the European confidence pact for employment. 
The European Council has acknowledged the need to act without delay in order to 
ensure that schools are not left out of the information society. Further to its request, this 
2-year Action Plan will focus the use of different Community instruments on a limited 
number of actions to provide the added benefits of a Europe-wide approach and 
contribute a European dimension to initiatives at local, regional, and national levels. 
Linking schools using information society tools, promoting the production and 
exchange of European content and stimulating the diffusion of "best practices" in 
multimedia teaching methods, will help bring different cultures together, strengthen the 
European identity and reinforce European integration. 
In order to succeed, the implementation of the Action Plan should go hand-in-hand with 
a firm commitment from the Member States, the regions and the private sector. The 
Community, along with the Member States, should ensure that all schools, universities, 
and libraries are connected to the knowledge networks by the year 2000 in order that all 
young Europeans can benefit fully from the multimedia revolution. 
18 
APPENDICES 
Recent public initiatives for multimedia education in schools 
1. Europe 
Germany 
The Ministry of Education, Science and Technology, with the support of Deutsche 
Telekom, has launched a three-year initiative called "Schulen Ans Netz" to connect 
10 ©00 schools to on-line information services. 
Denmark 
Under its general action plan "INFO 2000 TF&TAction Plan", which was introduced in 
1994, the government has made provision for connecting all primary and secondary 
schools to tfee national and mternational network by the year 2000. 
Finland 
In 1995, nie Ministry of Echtcation introduced a five-year plan entitled "Education, 
Training and Research in the Information Society: a national strategy" mainly designed 
to connect all schools and teaching institutions to information networks by the year 
2000. 
France 
In 1995, the government identified 244 projects as being "in the public interest", some 
of which cover the fields of education. The Ministry of Education draws up a catalogue 
of digital resources and set up services in partnership with content and on-line service 
providers. Schools belonging to 13 Académies will be connected using the RENATER 
research network. 
Italy 
In October 1995, a decree from the Ministry of Education set up a task force to develop 
the use of technology in the education system and introduced an action plan to fit out 
20% of primary schools and 30% of secondary schools with multimedia equipment and 
software by the year 2005. 
United Kingdom 
In November 1995 the government launched an initiative entitled "Superhighways in 
Education - The Way Forward' to connect schools and colleges to the information 
networks. This is the final step in a broad consultation process which commenced in 
April and has involved 400 organisations. 23 pilot projects will be allocated 
12 million ECU. 
Sweden 
A national school network, Skoldatanatet, has been operational since 1994 using the 
Internet. Since 1995, every municipality has been obliged to prepare measures for the 
introduction and use of new technologies in the classroom. A bill has been debated in 
Parliament which would make the use of new technologies compulsory in the basic 
training of teachers. Teachers' continuous training in this field will also be reinforced. 
19 
European Community 
Numerous programmes such as the Telematic Applications programme (1994-1998), 
Media II and Info 2000 (1996-1999), Socrates and Leonardo (1995-1999) give their 
support to research activities in the field of educational multimedia production and 
distribution, and in the training of teachers in this domain. 
2. United States 
In February 1996, President Clinton launched a national initiative "The Technology 
Literacy Challenge" to connect all American schools to the information highways by the 
year 2000. A "Technology Literacy Challenge Fund" of 1.6 billion ECU established for 
a five-year period will encourage partnerships on an equal footing between the states 
and private enterprises. A "Local Innovation Fund" with a budget of 39 million ECU a 
year will finance local initiatives under the same public/private partnership conditions. 
3. Japan 
In 1990, the Ministry of Education introduced a nine-year action plan to familiarise 
pupils with the use of the multimedia, equip all schools with multimedia hardware and 
software, train teachers to use multimedia in teaching and support the use of advanced 
technology. The MITI launched a " Programme for Info-Communications" in May 1994 
with the main emphasis on developing multimedia applications in teaching (cf. the "100 
schools network project"). 
20 
"LEARNING IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY" 
PROPOSED TIMETABLE 1996-1998 
The Action Plan "Learning in the Information Society" will be based on the close 
coordination of existing Community financial instruments (programmes and budget 
lines) managed by the Commission, in full respect of their rules and specific 
characteristics. No extra budgetary appropriations are required. The aim is to combine 
these different instruments, as well as other European and national instruments, both 
public and private, in order to take advantage of their complementarity, in keeping with 
the recommendations of the Task Force on "Educational Software and Multimedia". 
Action Line N°l 
Encourage the interconnection of regional and national school Timetable 
networks at a Community level 
Inventory of local, national and international school networks (working October 1996 
document) 
European conference December 1996 
Techno-Economic Feasibility Study for the European interconnection of March 1997 
networks 
Preparation and follow up of the networking of schools 1997-1998 
Pilot project for the implementation of a network of experimental 1997-1998 
multimedia classes 
Action Line N°2 
Stimulate the development and dissemination of content Timetable 
Workshops on the Image and Scientific Education in Europe October 1996 
Preparation and coordination of the workshop with the participation of January 1997 
representatives from the educational multimedia and audiovisual 
products sector 
Inventory of content and survey of practices (study results) June 1997 
Stimulation and follow up of the co-production of European educational 1997-1998 
products 
Inventory of multimedia resource centres December 1996 
Feasibility study and preparation of their connection to a network March 1997-1998 
21 
Action Line N°3 
Training and support for teachers and trainers Timetable 
Management of training projects 1996-1998 
Management of teaching and technology research using existing 1997-1998 
networked experimental multimedia classes 
Management of network projects between training centres 1997-1998 
Action Line N°4 
Inform players of the educational opportunities afforded by Timetable 
multimedia 
Inventory of educational sites and services supplied on-line December 1996 
Feasibility study for the creation of an information exchange platform March 1997 
on the Internet 
Creation and coordination of the Internet platform project September 1997 
Information exchange and contacts with the public authorities concerned 1996-1998 
General information using traditional media 1996-1998 
General Accompanying Measures 
Make use of Community resources and encourage 
Public/Private partnerships Timetable 
Preparation of memoranda of understanding on public-
private partnerships and preparatory work for the 
establishment of a European association December 1996 
Workshop on public-private partnerships and 
encouragement of project start-ups 1997-1998 in association with 
the Bangemann sub-group 
Encourage the participation of citizens and the Timetable 
emergence of creative talent 
European Multimedia School Days May 1997 and 1998 
European Award for the Best Multimedia Products December 1997 and 1998 
22 
ISSN 0254-1475 
COM(96) 471 final 
DOCUMENTS 
EN 16 15 04 
Catalogue number : CB-CO-96-492-EN-C 
ISBN 92-78-09750-0 
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities 
L-2985 Luxembourg