European Action Programmes for Lifelong Learning

Abstract

Vocational education and training has been a part of the process of creating a European community since the 1950s. The European training programmes Erasmus and Comett were launched in the 1980s. After the Maastricht Treaty, agreed in 1992, such training programmes were expanded further at the same time as emphasizing their importance to the internationalization of education. With a view to promoting and intensifying educational co-operation, in 1995 the European Commission created two new educational programmes called Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci. Both are umbrella schemes that brought together previously separate action programmes in the field of education. Leonardo da Vinci has been a European Union (EU) action programme in the field of vocational education and training that replaced earlier schemes such as Comett, Eurotechnet, Petra, Force and a part of Lingua. Leonardo I ran from 1995 to 1999, while Leonardo II covered the years 2000 to 2006. Socrates has been the EU umbrella programme for co-operation in school and higher education. Socrates I (1995–1999) was followed by Socrates II (2000– 2006). Since 2007, the European education and training programmes were further merged under the title Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP), being a successor to the Socrates, Leornardo da Vinci and e-Learning programmes. The LLP covers the period 2007 to 2013 with a budget of about 7 billion Euros. The overarching LLP initiative consists of learning opportunities from childhood to old age. The purpose of these programmes has been to promote the international mobility of students, teachers and educational administrators, develop educational practices, and make European education systems more transparent through mutual learning. The target group of these programmes has been individuals in schools, colleges, universities and companies. The motives behind internationalization include sustainable economic growth, competitiveness, a need for an educated workforce and social cohesion. This chapter describes the development of European education and training programmes, especially in TVET, and assesses their effectiveness.