Learning & Skills
“In the 21st century, our natural resource is our people – and their potential is untapped and vast. Skills will unlock that potential.” - Leitch Review, December 2006
The development of learning and skills is fundamental to the economic and social well-being of the UK and Europe. Building policies and infrastructures that can support the level of development required is now a major priority.
Across Europe, governments are seeking to build systems that can meet the needs of businesses and individuals in a variety of ways. These include: developing a better understanding of education and training; reforming the accreditation and qualification systems to encourage flexibility in the labour market; extending the definition of learning to encompass informal learning; and developing robust planning and quality assurance systems.
ECOTEC can help you:
- Find and implement practical solutions;
- Gather a clear picture of supply and demand in learning markets and help to identify business skills needs;
- Evaluate education and training programmes, and recommend how they can be developed to meet your objectives;
- Develop sustainable policies that meet the needs of the economy and of diverse communities;
- Determine where your policy should head in the future and assess the quality of provision, provider capacity and capability development.
Service Portfolio: Survey of the Socio-Economic Background of ERASMUS Students
The ERASMUS programme is one of the most visible European initiatives in education and culture, having enabled over 1,000,000 higher education students to undertake a Erasmus study period abroad since its inception 20 years ago. A key concern in relation to the programme is the extent to which it is reaching a wide range of students across all socio-economic backgrounds and aids international student mobility through its grants. When the Directorate General of Education and Culture of the European Commission recently decided to carry out a “Survey of the socio-economic background of ERASMUS students” it commissioned this to ECOTEC. The overall objective of the project was to update a similar survey originally carried out by the European Commission in 1998, to give an overview of the socio-economic situation of students who participated in the ERASMUS programme during the academic year 2004/05.
Over 15,000 responses of students from 30 countries were obtained through the on-line survey. The results showed that the participation in the programme of students from higher socio-economic backgrounds was prevalent, but progress had been made to expand participation to other groups over the last 10 years. ECOTEC's recommendations on how to further widen participation in the programme are currently being subject to debate at European as well as national level.
james.rampton@ecotec.com
+44 121 616 3600
Other projects in this Portfolio
