Educational policy

According to Art. 165 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union The
Union promotes the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation
between the Member States and, if necessary, supporting and complementing their
activities. The activities of the Union are directly aimed at:
 to develop a European dimension in education, in particular by teaching the
languages of the Member States and disseminating their knowledge;
 creating favorable conditions for the mobility of students and teachers,
including encouraging academic recognition of diplomas and periods of
study;
 promoting cooperation between educational institutions;
 promoting the exchange of information and experience on issues common to
the education systems of the Member States;
 creating favorable conditions for the development of exchanges of young
people and organizers of the learning process and encouraging the
participation of young people in the democratic life of Europe;
 encouraging the development of distance learning.
At the same time, Member States are fully responsible for the content of education,
the organization of education systems and their cultural and linguistic diversity.
It should also be noted that, although the Union has been empowered to take
incentive measures in this area, any harmonization of the regulatory and legislative
provisions of the Member States is prohibited.
EU tries to carry out its educational policies by its educational programmes.
Thanks to these programmes, it is planned to develop both corporate and personal
cooperation among the member countries of EU. It is enabled to share different
experiences with people in different culture who join to the programmes in an
environment of understanding and cooperation. The efficiency and sustainability of
educational programmes are tried to provide by the education is carried out in
every phase of life and in the strategy called “Lifelong Learning.”
The first educational programme of EU is the programme called “COMETT”,
which was accepted in 1987. This programme was designed for encouraging
consultancies and contacts between the industry and the university in EU. As for
Erasmus Programme, which follows this policy, both promotes the cooperative
contacts among universities and aims at student mobility. The other programmes
applied since 995 are SOCRATES I-II (1995-2006), LIFELONG LEARNING
(2007-2013), and ERASMUS+ (2014-2020).
Finally, the EU is considering capitalizing on different cultures, languages, beliefs
and lives, rather than trying to pursue uniform educational policies. However,
closer cooperation and harmonization is becoming the main goal in vocational
education.