The Chair of the SEDEC Commission was among the key speakers of the conference on "Equity and Quality in Education", organised by the International Social Democratic Union for Education (ISDUE) in Manchester and Glossop (UK), at the invitation of Councillor Dave Wilcox, Chair of Derbyshire County Labour Group and former CoR member. The conference sought to link education with lessons learnt from the history of the cotton trade and industry in the North West of England, the main focus being what kind of education can properly equip present and future generations for employment and fulfilment in the digital age.
Yoomi Renström briefly presented the European Commission's recently adopted New Skills Agenda for Europe, which focuses on the right skills that Europeans need to respond to changes in labour market requirements. She reminded that skills acquisition and upskilling are not just a matter of demand and offer. "Labour market needs may dictate employment trends, but education does and should go beyond a strictly utilitarian approach", she said. She also pointed out that, as the European Commission proposals are to a large extent industry driven and no new money is foreseen for the implementation of the Skills Agenda, this is a major challenge for Member States in financial difficulty and already hit by forced emigration and subsequent brain drain.
Referring to decreases in education investment in the EU for the third consecutive year, Yoomi Renström urged for the reversal of this trend since education is key to long-term growth. "We need to improve equity in skills development because skills mismatch has a cost for individuals, enterprises and the whole of society", she said, calling for equity in on-the-job- training, and investments in human teaching capital, as well as in innovative and digital technologies.
Commenting on recent EU statistics, Yoomi Renström pointed to the marked problems in the job matching process, which is related to mismatches in skills and educational qualifications required for a certain job and to regional or sectoral mismatches. "We need a balanced mix of skills across sectors, countries and qualification levels, broader skill profiles across occupations and qualifications and acquisition of new specialised and technical skills as these are changing more rapidly throughout working life", she pointed out. "We cannot speculate about the skills of the future but active lifelong learning and ICT literacy will be essential", she added.
She concluded by stressing the need for a holistic approach to skills governance, which combines different policies, including social, cohesion and immigration policies.
