European education area

The European education area (EEA) is the shared vision of the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU) and the European Commission for the future of the EU’s education and training sector. The idea was first endorsed by the Member States in 2017. The EEA is one of the political commitments made by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, upon assuming office in 2019. In September 2020, a European Commission communication outlined the details and scope of the EEA, and led to a Council resolution in February 2021.

Together, the Member States and the Commission want to bring about a significant shift in education and training in Europe, ensuring that everybody has access to quality education along the following overarching priority areas.

• Improving the quality of education and training through a variety of actions including:
  • boosting basic and transversal skills;
  • promoting multilingualism and supporting language teaching and learning;
  • developing a European perspective in education.
• Ensuring inclusion and gender equality to reduce inequalities by:
  • tackling underachievement and early school leaving across the EU and decoupling educational attainment from socioeconomic background;
  • promoting the inclusiveness, quality and recognition of cross-border volunteering and solidarity activities;
  • promoting equal opportunities, access, inclusion, diversity and fairness across all actions under the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes;
  • creating centres of excellence for vocational education and training;
  • applying gender-sensitive and inclusive teaching.
• Promoting policies and investments to bring about the green and digital transitions through a series of actions including:
  • creating an Education for Climate Coalition (a participatory education community to support the changes needed for a climate-neutral society);
  • the greening of education infrastructure;
  • proposing a Council recommendation on education for environmental sustainability;
  • implementing the digital education action plan;
  • making the Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corps programmes greener and more digital.
• Enhancing competence and motivation in the education profession by:
  • creating Erasmus Teacher Academies;
  • providing European guidance for national career frameworks;
  • conferring the European Innovative Teaching Award.
• Reinforcing higher education institutions by:
  • proposing a European strategy for universities to promote the transformation of the higher education sector;
  • ensuring a full roll-out of the European universities initiative;
  • developing a European degree;
  • establishing a legal statute for alliances of universities;
  • implementing the European graduate tracking initiative;
  • launching a European student card initiative and the Erasmus+ mobile app.
• Promoting lifelong learning and mobility by:
  • improving mobility and cooperation opportunities;
  • ensuring the automatic mutual recognition of higher education and upper secondary education and training qualifications and outcomes of learning periods abroad;
  • agreeing on a European approach to microcredentials (qualifications that demonstrate learning outcomes acquired via short, transparently-assessed courses or modules).
• Achieving a geopolitical dimension — education as part of a stronger Europe in the world — by:
  • using the ‘Team Europe’ approach (where the EU institutions and the Member States work together to support transformational change by delivering concrete results for partner countries);
  • supporting the association of the western Balkans and strengthening cooperation with strategic global partners;
  • expanding the international dimension of Erasmus+.

NextGenerationEU and the multiannual financial framework (2021–2027) will channel more funds than ever before into education and training to support the EEA. Erasmus+ remains the EU’s flagship programme when it comes to investing in education and training, but resources will also be available under other funds, such as the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the European Structural Funds or InvestEU.

By implementing wide-ranging actions, the EEA will become a reality by 2025, and lead to the extensive modernisation of the education and training sector to the benefit of all European citizens.