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The Youth Guarantee is an innovative approach to tackling youth unemployment to ensure that all young people under 25 - whether registered with employment services or not - get a good-quality offer of employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a traineeship within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education. [European Union] EU countries endorsed the principle of the Youth Guarantee in April 2013. This leaflet explains how the Youth Guarantee works and why it makes a difference.

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In 2009, the Council endorsed the renewed framework for European cooperation in the youth field (2010-2018), known in short as the [European Union] EU Youth Strategy. Its objectives are to: (1) create more and equal opportunities for all young people in education and in the labour market; and (2) promote the active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity of all young people. This Staff working document supports the Commission Communication which presents the draft joint report on the EU Youth Report to the Council. Summarising the results of the first cycle (2010-2012), it presents the actions taken at EU-level and in Member States, as well as initiatives taken by young people themselves. Separate chapters report on achievements in all eight 'fields of action' of the strategy, the general organisation and approach to youth policy, and the structured dialogue between young people and policy-makers. The references made to Member States' activities are based on national youth reports submitted by them. Young people are represented in the report by the European Youth Forum, which is an umbrella organisation of approximately 40 National Youth Councils and more than 60 international non-governmental youth organisations in Europe.

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In this study the effect of the reduced distribution of study activities on students' conceptual understanding of statistics is investigated in a quasi-experiment. Conceptual understanding depends on coherent and error free knowledge structures. Students need time to construct such knowledge structures. A curriculum reform at our university resulted in statistics courses which were considerably shortened in time, thereby limiting students' possibility to distribute study activities. Independent samples of students from before and after the reform were compared. To gauge conceptual understanding of statistics, students answered open ended questions in which they were asked to explain and relate important statistical concepts. It was shown that the reduction of distributed practice had a negative effect on students' understanding. The finding that condensed courses make it more difficult for students to reach proper understanding of the subject matter is of interest for anyone who is engaged in reforming curricula or designing courses.

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Language competences are a key dimension of modernising European education systems, and this staff working document [SWD] is part of a larger policy initiative contributing to Europe 2020. It offers analysis and insight to support the Commission communication on 'Re-thinking Education: a blueprint to invest in the skills of the future for better economic and social outcomes'. Raising the language competences of children, young people and adults will foster the mobility of workers and students and improve the employability of the European workforce. Therefore, improved language competences will contribute to achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy of growth and jobs. This SWD presents ground-breaking evidence. It draws on the new European Survey on Language Competences (ESLC), which assesses pupils' knowledge of the first and second foreign languages at the end of lower secondary education. Show less

This publication results from major reviews of national career guidance policies carried out by the OECD and the European Commission (EC) during 2001-2003. Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the UK participated in the OECD review. The European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP) collected data from Belgium, France, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Portugal and Sweden for the EC, and the European Training Foundation (ETF) gathered data from Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. A review by the World Bank was undertaken in 2003 in Chile, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, South Africa and Turkey. For each country, the reviews assessed how the organisation, management and delivery of career guidance services contribute to the implementation of lifelong learning and active labour market policies. Several common themes emerged from the reviews about deficiencies in national career guidance services. Many examples of good practice exist but there are major discrepancies between service organisation and delivery, and some key public policy goals. Practical solutions are provided for policy makers to address these issues. The publication covers the major policy domains involved in developing a comprehensive framework for lifelong guidance systems: meeting the career guidance needs of young people and of adults; widening access to career guidance; improving career information; staffing and funding career guidance services; and improving strategic leadership. For each of these policy areas, the publication: describes the key challenges for policy makers in trying to improve career guidance services; provides examples of good practice and of effective responses to these challenges, based on research conducted in 36 OECD and European countries; poses the questions that policy makers need to address in responding to these challenges; and provides practical options for improving policy. Show less

This report sets out steps to be taken without delay to get young people back into work, education or training. These steps cover: the implementation of the Youth Guarantee; investment in young people through the European Social Fund; the front-loading of the Youth Employment Initiative; support for intra-[European Union] EU labour mobility with EURES; steps to ease the transition from education to work by boosting the supply of high quality apprenticeships and traineeships and addressing skills shortages; an acceleration of reforms to deliver a genuine EU labour market in the longer run; and measures to support job creation in the immediate term, especially by [small and medium-sized] SMEs, and to incentivise the hiring of young people.

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This publication has been produced in response to the plan for Objective 3 in the United Kingdom. Chapter 1 provides a summary of the main features of the labour market over recent years and current trends; the results of the monitoring and evaluation exercise for Objective 3 and 4 in the previous period, and a prior appraisal of the UK plan. Chapter 2 gives an outline of the strategic approach, discusses the priorities for European Social Fund (ESF) support, and the nature of the measures within each ESF supported priority. It also presents the indicators against which the ESF contribution will be assessed. Chapter 3 looks at the financing plan by priority, the explanation of additionality, how it will be measured, the additionality table, and the explanation of concentration and the concentration table. Chapter 4 describes the committee structure for the administration of the program, the method to be applied in the UK for monitoring and evaluating ESF, an outline of the criteria for selecting projects, the approach to multiannual approvals and the Commission standard clauses on administration of ESF in Member States. Show less

Since 2008 Europe has been suffering the effects of the most severe economic crisis it has seen in 50 years: for the first time in Europe there are over 25 million unemployed and in the majority of Member States small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have not yet been able to bounce back to their pre-crisis levels. To bring Europe back to growth and higher levels of employment, Europe needs more entrepreneurs. As a follow up to the Small Business Act review of April 2011 and of the Industrial policy communication adopted last October, the proposed action plan sets out a renewed vision and a number of actions to be taken at both [European Union] EU and Member States' level to support entrepreneurship in Europe. It is based on three pillars: developing entrepreneurial education and training; creating the right business environment; role models and reaching out to specific groups.

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The quality of human capital is crucial for Europe's success. The Europe 2020 Strategy puts a strong emphasis on education and training to promote 'smart, sustainable and inclusive growth'. This Communication responds to the call of the Europe 2020 Strategy to reinforce the attractiveness of vocational education and training (VET) and maps out its potential with respect to the Flagship Initiatives 'An Agenda for new skills and jobs' and 'Youth on the Move', including its Youth employment framework. VET must play a dual role: as a tool to help meet Europe's immediate and future skills needs; and, in parallel, to reduce the social impact of and facilitate recovery from the crisis. These twin challenges call for urgent reforms.

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This publication from the European Commission outlines an initial evaluation of the future needs of the [European Union] EU with regard to skills and jobs up to 2020. This initiative has two goals: to help make sure that there is a sufficient match between skills and the needs of the employment market; and to improve Member States’ ability to evaluate and anticipate the skills needs of their citizens and businesses. Targeted at the informed public, in particular stakeholders, this publication presents the full Communication, together with additional information explaining the context and providing further details. Show less