EN    EN EN 
 
EN    EN  COMMISSION OF THE E UROPEAN COMMUNITIES 
Brussels,  
SEC(2008) 3048  
COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
accompanying the   
 
COMMUNICATION FROM THE CO MMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN 
PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL 
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMI TTEE OF THE REGIONS 
 
"An updated strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training'' 
 
Impact Assessment Summary  
{COM(2008) 865 final} 
{SEC(2008) 3047}
 
EN 2   EN COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT 
SUMMARY OF THE IMPACT ASSESSM ENT ON AN UPDATED STRATEGIC 
FRAMEWORK FOR EUROPEAN COOPERATION IN EDUCATION AND 
TRAINING 
This impact assessment will accompany the Commission Communication on an updated 
strategic framework for European cooperatio n in education and training. The Education 
Council invited the Commission to come forward with such a proposal in key messages which 
were endorsed by the March 2008 European Council.  
Education and training is a cr ucial factor in the Lisbon St rategy and its open method of 
coordination (the "Education and Training 2010"  work programme) has delivered concrete 
results, increasing countries participation in  and benefits from Eu ropean cooperation and 
reducing barriers to citizens' mobility and lifelong learning. However, major challenges and weaknesses in national systems still persist as illustrated in the 2008 Joint Report of the 
Council and the Commission on the impl ementation of the work programme
1 and the 
insufficient progress towards meeting the five benchmarks agreed under the current OMC. 
These results and the feedback received from consultations of Member States and European 
stakeholder organisations carried out in the context of this impact assessment show that there 
is a need to improve national implementation and thus the impact of the OMC on national 
systems by ensuring a stronger focus on immediat e priorities, greater political commitment 
and visibility, better involvemen t of stakeholders, more effec tive mutual learning and stronger 
lifelong learning coordination across education and training sectors. 
Concerning the overall future challenges to education and training systems, the policy 
challenges of the knowledge economy, demographi c change and globali sation highlighted by 
the Lisbon strategy persist. In addition, issues such as migra tion and sustainability have 
become salient. There are serious risks of mism atches between skills supply and demand, with 
shortages of high-skilled workers and insufficient qualification levels of low-skilled people. There is thus an urgent need to upgrade the ski lls of the workforce and of those at the risk of 
exclusion. Economic evidence confirms the cons iderable benefits for the economy, society 
and the individual of investment in educa tion and training, in terms of employability, 
knowledge and innovation, social inclusion and ci tizenship, including the reduction of crime 
and improvement of health. 
The result of the broad consultation of countri es, social partners an d stakeholders on the 
results of the current OMC in education and training has been largely favourable. The overall 
challenges and objectives which the OMC addre sses remain valid. Countries however also 
recommend adjustments to the working met hods in order to increase their focus and 
effectiveness.  
Based on the above challenges, three objectives are defined for an updated strategic 
framework for European cooperation in educatio n and training: raising overall skills levels 
(long-term), supporting countries in their educ ation and training reforms (medium-term) and, 
finally, addressing specific elements to impr ove the effectiveness and impact of the OMC, 
                                                
 
1 The 2008 Joint Progress Report of the Council and the Commission on the implementation of the 
'Education and Training 2010' work programme "Delivering lifelong learning for knowledge, creativity 
and innovation" (February 2008) (OJ C 86, 5.4. 2008, p. 1). 
 
EN 3   EN notably through better focus, poli tical commitment and visibili ty, stakeholder involvement, 
peer learning and horizontal coordination acro ss education and training sectors (short-term). 
Four policy options are taken into considera tion: continuing work under the Lisbon strategy 
without a specific OMC for education and traini ng, continuing with the status quo (i.e. the 
Education and Training 2010 work programme in  its current form), an updated strategic 
framework and a wider and deeper OMC. Thes e options each demand a different type of 
commitment from countries and workload in te rms of co-operation activities, but all respect 
the principle of subsidiarity and are proportiona l to the major challenges facing education and 
training within the broader context of the Li sbon Strategy and renewed Social Agenda.  
The impact of the OMC on national policy ma king and policy convergence is challenging to 
assess for all four options. It is, in particul ar, difficult to show r obust evidence of casual 
linkage between the OMC and national policy out comes in terms of quantifiable results (e.g. 
in relation to raising skills levels as measured  by progress in relation to the benchmarks). In 
qualitative terms, the experience to date and th e consultation however confirm that the current 
OMC is clearly perceived by Member States a nd stakeholders as co ntributing to national 
policy development, but with areas requiring improvement. Strengthen ing its effectiveness 
through either an updated strategi c framework or a wider and d eeper OMC (options 3 or 4) 
would, therefore, most likely, increase its ove rall impact on the reform of national systems 
contributing to the Lisbon and renewed Social Agendas. 
While the different options all have their a dvantages, only the development of an updated 
strategic framework (option 3) meets the dema nds for the OMC to have a greater impact on 
national reforms of education a nd training systems and to become  a more effective instrument 
of co-operation and policy development. It allo ws to define policy objectives responding to 
the full range of challenges identified by Member  States and stakeholders and also to respond 
to the requests for changes in relation to the working methods us ed in the OMC. Finally, this 
option is also feasible. 
The mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the impact on national policy-making, policy 
convergence and policy outcomes of the OMC in e ducation and training already exist in the 
form of biennial joint progre ss reports and annual reports on i ndicators and benchmarks. Their 
effectiveness would be strength ened by a stronger emphasis on thematic priorities in the Joint 
Reports, the inclusion of country assessments, improved feedback from Member States on the 
working of the OMC and a stronger involvement of stakeholders.