REACTION ON THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION POLICY COMMUNICATION “RETHINKING EDUCATION: INVESTING IN SKILLS FOR BETTER SOCIO-ECONOMIC OUTCOMES”

 From Arts and Culture in Europe we well come the initiative by the Commission that by “Rethinking Education: Investing in skills for better socio-economic outcomes” instrumentalising the policy presented more than ten years ago in the communication “Making a European Area for Lifelong Learning a Reality”. That is certainly needed in the current situation of social and economic crisis. 

We do however fear that the outcome of the initiative is much too narrow in its scope as it does not utilize the results in later years in development processes outside traditional educational thinking.

 The focus on knowledge and skills competences comes with a prize!

The communication is focusing almost solely on learning outcomes in the forms of knowledge and skills and thereby excluding the outcomes in the form of new, changed or developed attitudes. That is on the background of classical and still valid education research a grave mistake when the primary purpose of the actions proposed in the communication is to include marginalised groups in the labour force through competence development. As the European labour market continues to change from less complex to more complex production processes it will not be enough to stimulate initiatives for teaching knowledge and skills. The attitudes towards learning and towards combinations of knowledge and skills are central to success and the necessary attitude development is not achieved by simple teaching situations but through learning situations in learning environments which engage the whole person through stimulating al senses. By solely expecting the competence development to be achieved by traditional educational means the communication risks to waste sparse resources for very modest results for the individual and for society.

Partnerships should themselves be creative – not just begging for training options!

The communication raises awareness of the necessity of close collaboration between industry and public authorities. That partnership cannot stand alone if more than training options in combination with education is wanted. Europe needs a creative labour force and this labour force is expected to be recruited from the large groups of younger people, who in growing numbers meet the barriers for entering working life, but then it is necessary to stimulate and develop creativity and for that the partnerships themselves have to stimulate creativity through creative learning environments. Active participation of Arts and Culture in learning environments offers just that.

It is sad that the result of an important and needed initiative does not show the same level of ambition. Several years of research, experimentation and mapping of fantastic practice in (1) learning through experience with Arts and Culture, (2) in the evidence based potential in Arts and Culture to reach learners who are difficult to reach with traditional education means, (3) in the well known positive impact of learning cultural competences on other competences and (4) in the need of cultural competences for the development of creativity – all that is excluded from this document. We wonder why results from several years of professional work of experts for OMC groups, dialogue platforms and independent R&D environments are not taken into account. The potential of arts and culture in learning is ignored.

Thereby the European Union fail to make advantage of the potential in arts and culture in a time with a serious situation for competence challenges where one would think that all resources would be needed in order reach the needed educational capacity in society and for making a real impact.

 Henrik Zipsane