WRITTEN QUESTION E-2357/00

by Bart Staes (Verts/ALE) to the Commission

(13 July 2000)

Subject: European report on the quality of school education

In the European report on the quality of school education by the European Commission the Belgian Federation scores low marks by comparison with other EU Member States for tolerance of foreigners by young people. For foreign-language learning, the Federation even scores in the lowest group. But for parental participation, mathematics and natural sciences, the European Commission awards marks to the Flemish community considered separately. And there the Flemish community is one of the front runners.

Because the Commission ignores the division of powers in the Belgian Federation (education is unequivocally the responsibility of the federal states) its report gives a distorted and unfair picture. On 9 out of 16 counts, it uses figures for Belgium as a whole; on the remaining ones (mathematics, natural sciences, use of integrated computer technology (ICT) in the curriculum, education system, parental participation, number of learners per computer and educational expenditure per learner/student) it draws on data for the communities considered separately. The findings of the report consequently cannot be interpreted unambiguously.

1. Does the Commission recognise that its methodology (viz. failure to distinguish between the data for the Flemish and French communities respectively) gives a distorted and therefore unfair picture of the education situation in the Belgian Federation? If not, how can the Commission justify its choice of methodology, given that education in the Belgian Federation is unequivocally the responsibility of the communities?

2. Does the Commission recognise more specifically that its methodology (viz. failure to distinguish between the data for the Flemish and French communities) gives a distorted and therefore unfair picture of the attitudes of Flemish and French-speaking young people to foreigners? If not, what arguments can the Commission put forward for its failure to distinguish between the different sets of data on attitudes to foreigners?

Joint answer to Written Questions E-2357/00 and E-2358/00 given by Mrs Reding on behalf of the Commission

(11 September 2000)

The methodology used for the preparation of the report in terms of data presentation for Belgium was based on the following principles. In cases where qualitative data exists for both the French and Flemish communities, both sets of data are presented in situations where that data differs. If, however, the data is identical, it is presented under the single heading of Belgium. This was the case with Eurydice data.

In cases where certain data was not available, only the data that was available was presented. This is the case with IEA (International association for the evaluation of educational achievement) sources, where this independent international organisation is conducting world-wide surveys on the basis of financial contributions from the countries which have agreed to participate. So, the countries presented in the indicators from an IEA source are only those which have participated in the survey.

When data are from a Eurostat source, the approach followed by Eurostat is, in general, to present statistics at Member State level. This has been reflected in the report.