Part V: Education Policy

Present Trends in Public Secondary Education in Western Europe
Education, Credentialling, and the Labor Market in the European Community: An Agenda for Research
The Study of Education as a Pariority
'Goodbye, Mr. Chips': A Proposal for the Abolition of the Lifetime Classroom Teacher
Academia in Anarchy
Private Education
OECD Reviews of Educational Policy
Education for Development
The Utility of Country Case Studies for Educational Planning
Educational Financing and Policy Goals

          
Source:  Max A. Eckstein and Harold J. Noah,
          "Education, Credentialling, and the Labour
          Market in the European Community: an Agenda
          for Research".  Revista de Educacion  301
          (May-August 1993),  pp.91-106. 
 

             

EDUCATION, CREDENTIALLING, AND THE LABOR MARKET IN THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY: AN AGENDA FOR RESEARCH

Introduction

Until the end of World War II, it was virtually impossible to contemplate a functioning association of the countries of Western Europe. However, since that time, following a growing sense of interdependence and the tempering of nationalistic attitudes and practices, the European Community (EC) has evolved. The integration of the West European labour market, formally completed on January 1, 1993, promises an eventual removal in practice of obstacles to the free movement of educated, trained, and credentialled labour within Europe. Abolition of the legal and bureaucratic barriers to the movement of labour will not mean an abrupt flood of professionals and skilled workers across national frontiers. Indeed, all signs to date point to only modest growth in such migration. Nevertheless, given time, an integrated labour market is likely to become a standard feature of life in Europe. The number of EC citizens working in Member States other than their own will surely grow. In turn we can expect far-reaching changes to occur in the content and structure of technical, vocational and higher education, together with their associated credentials. These developments offer a unique opportunity to study the relationships among the labour market, education, and credentialling. This paper outlines an agenda for research as these changes go forward.

In the course of their establishment, the educational systems of the European countries diverged from broadly common, church-defined models, to reflect strongly-held nationalistic ideologies. In addition, professions and specializations proliferated, each with a distinct and complex body of knowledge, path of preparation, and structure of credentials, designed to serve industrialized and, more recently, information-based economies. Governments erected a formidable array of administrative controls, designed partly to protect the jobs and living space of their own nationals from the competition of immigrants. Employment in the public services was normally open to citizens only. Both the higher professions of medicine and law and the skilled and semi-skilled trades were hedged about with an array of training and credentialling requirements. Completion of compulsory education (and even complete general secondary education), certified by possession of the associated credential, came to be the standard prerequisite for further education and training. Thus, while it was not impossible for a qualified person trained and credentialled in one country to move abroad to practice, s/he would have to surmount a barricade of retraining and reexamination requirements in order to do so.

Together with the natural barriers to the movement of persons from country to country (language and cultural differences, costs of travel, and loss of the support afforded by one's native community), these artificial requirements raised formidable obstacles to the free movement of qualified persons among the countries of Western Europe. Now, across the entire area of the twelve member states of the EC, the artificial barriers to movement are in the course of being swept away, and even the natural barriers are substantially weaker.

Considerable efforts have been made to identify and remove the barriers that prevent persons qualified in one nation from practicing in another. Some of the problems associated with the international equivalence of credentials have already been addressed, mostly by arranging for the mutual recognition of credentials among the members of the Community. Educational and training programs are being changed so that graduates will become better equipped to take advantage of the new conditions of the Western Europe of 1993 and beyond. Younger persons, particularly, are likely to take advantage of the opportunities for greater international mobility. Their perceived costs of migration are lower than for older, more established persons, and their expected benefits are collectible over a longer period.

Within countries, "European" elements are being introduced, albeit slowly, into school and university curricula, foreign language teaching extended and improved, study abroad facilitated, and international cooperation in vocational training encouraged.¹ Though they have proceeded unevenly from member State to member State, taken together these developments have begun to lower the natural barriers to the movement of persons by reducing the foreignness of other European countries. Across the EC, new Europe-wide agencies and programmes have been created to initiate and support these efforts.

Public education in the European countries developed, as elsewhere, to serve two major functions: to nurture a sense of patriotism and national community; and to equip young people to contribute more effectively to the economy, thus raising both national production of wealth and personal incomes. As the concept of patriotism enlarges to embrace the European Community, and as the labour market widens from national to Europe-wide dimensions, the older content and structures of education are likely to be markedly affected.

Although the formal objectives of the Treaty of Rome included improvement of the educational, cultural, and social condition of the population, no provision was made for a comprehensive set of programmes that might achieve that objective. The promoters of the Treaty acted as though they believed that no special provisions would be necessary, assuming that improvements in these non-economic spheres would automatically follow the accomplishing of their primary objective, the establishment of unfettered markets allowing the free movement of capital, goods, services, and labour across the Community.

This assumption underwent a slow modification over the next 30 years. By the end of the 1970s agreements had been made which accorded recognition across the EC of each member State's credentials, but for a strictly limited number of occupations only. Indeed, one might have assumed that progress on the educational, cultural, and social fronts of the EC would continue to be piecemeal and slow for the indefinite future. The high enthusiasm of the founding fathers of the EC had long evaporated and the Community appeared, if anything, to have regressed since the mid-1960s.

However, the arrival in Brussels on January 1, 1985, of a new President of the European Commission, Jacques Delors, marked the beginning of a decisive rejuvenation of EC policies and acceleration of the pace of change. His assumption of office provided a powerful impetus to the development of Community institutions, including, but by no means limited to, those concerned with the educational, cultural, and social condition of the population.

Under the general rubric of a "social Europe," the EC countries are developing an extensive formal framework for the improvement of educational and training provision, facilitation of cooperation among and between educational institutions, employers, and trade unions, reform of credentials and the process of credentialling, and access to employment.

The so-called European Single Act was signed by all 12 member States before the end of February 1986, and entered into force on July 1, 1987. It is this Single Act, embodying substantial modifications to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which currently forms the constitutional and political basis of the present European Community. Among other provisions, the Single Act required the mutual recognition of member States' technical standards and credentials, beginning January 1, 1993, and authorized a substantial delegation of powers to the European Commission in Brussels to make and enforce regulations in connection with the acts adopted by the Council of Ministers.

A series of European Council meetings since 1987 has widened still further the ambit of EC policy making and practical cooperation. Agricultural and financial policies have been substantially restructured. In particular, a Council meeting in Hanover in June 1988 emphasized the social and human goals of the Community. But that meeting also revealed large divergences of view among the member States in the matter of permitting the free movement of persons across national boundaries. Council meetings in Strasbourg and Madrid in 1989 began the march toward a future union of the monetary systems of the Twelve (not without protest from the British government), but they also sought to place emphasis on the social dimensions of the Common Market. Later meetings in 1990 and 1991 looking toward further steps on the monetary front and the creation of a more integrated political system and common social policies across the Community have raised questions that have proved to be exceptionally difficult to solve to the satisfaction of all member States. The differences were evident at the Council summit in Maastricht; they were made even clearer in the negotiations over the Maastricht treaty; and they came fully into the open during the hesitant process of eventual ratification. Despite these fits and starts on the political front, what continues to go ahead is the central subject of this agenda for research: the opening of labour markets to the nationals of other EC countries and the need to consider in timely fashion the adjustment of educational and training systems and their associated credentials to the reality of a more integrated Europe.

Educational and Social Programmes of the EC

The view that European capacity to compete in international markets and to prosper economically depends on improvements in its systems of education and training is widely held both within member States and at the Community level.² Educational policy in the EC forms part of a wider programme of social amelioration, dealing with common problems as varied as youth unemployment and equity in the employment of females, immigrants, and disabled workers.

New agencies have been established to provide forums for discussion, to act as centers for data collection and analysis, and to coordinate demonstration projects. In turn, this activity is intended to inform the drafting of common policies and their implementation. For example, CEDEFOP (European Centre for Development of Vocational Training, Berlin) was created in 1975 "to assist the [European] Commission in encouraging the promotion and development of vocational training and of in-service training." Its activities include: study visits for vocational trainers and specialists; compiling and maintaining a data base; carrying out comparative studies; and supporting research. A number of projects are specifically directed at assisting the transition of young people from education to employment.³

In addition, a host of varied Europe-wide educational and training programmes, targeted toward particular populations and educational needs has been established.⁴ The purpose of these programmes is to promote education and training in all of the EC member States, via opening access, innovating curricula, improving teaching and encouraging links to industry and employment.⁵ However, while all of this is being done within a context of Europeanization, the activities are carried out within each member State choosing to participate. Differences in education and training practices among member States highlight the need to ensure that differences in credentials do not hinder mobility across national frontiers. At the same time that the Community has developed these programmes, it has sought to arrange for a common currency of qualifications. As Clark Kerr observed: "The EC endeavour is the greatest of all intentionally planned experiments with the internationalisation (or at least regionalisation) of learning ever undertaken. This development implies greater similarity of degrees and of instructional content for students, . . ."⁶

Mutual Recognition of Credentials

The movement toward a more integrated Europe has generated new approaches to the differences among its members in education and training, and among entry and retention qualifications for various careers.⁷

The Treaty of Rome established the principle that members of the independent professions have the right to practice in any member State, either on a permanent or a temporary basis, under the same conditions that would apply to a national of that country. But this right was often limited in practice by the need to hold a professional qualification, certified by a diploma, certificate, or other credential issued in the receiving country, or recognized by it as equivalent.

Efforts at harmonization and mutual recognition proceeded at first on the basis of directives concerning individual occupations.⁸ But the process of reaching occupational agreements involved lengthy discussions among practitioners and government officials, and raised different problems, according to the occupation under consideration. For instance, in the case of veterinarians, the directive was seen as relatively non-contentious in Britain, Germany, Ireland, and Luxembourg. However, in Belgium and France some political significance was attached to the agreements, due to competition between these nations regarding the right of Belgian veterinary surgeons to practice in France. The French State examinations were said to be more demanding than examinations in other member States, and French university training for veterinary surgeons is based upon rigorous admission standards. The French professional association was opposed to any liberalization of its standards in order to facilitate free movement.

By the middle of the 1980s, it was apparent that the piecemeal, occupation-by-occupation approach was proceeding too slowly, and in May 1986 the European Commission issued a directive adopting the principle of the mutual recognition of diplomas, as recommended in The White Book.⁹ The directive was approved by the European Council in 1988. Henceforth, a receiving country would not be permitted to deny an applicant who possessed the higher education diploma(s) required in another member State permission to practice that profession. The same prohibition applied in the case of an applicant from another member State which did not require any diploma at all, but who had completed at least two years of full-time practice. However, knowledge of the host country language continued to be a requirement, and a course of professional retraining could be required in addition, if great differences existed in the training of the two countries.

So far, member States' responses to the Europeanization of education and training are fragmentary. and differ considerably from country to country. However, the integration of the European labour market is proceeding, accompanied by innovations in education and training and mutual recognition of qualifications. A major research task in this area is to describe, analyse, assess, and explain these diverse responses.

The concept, "Europeanization," extends well beyond the idea of an integrated labour market and encompasses more than merely the prospects for increased mobility of qualified persons within the EC. It includes such tangible elements as a more open market for capital and technology, and the growth of new institutions, regulations, and arrangements. But it also incorporates fundamental changes in attitudes and knowledge, ways of thinking and behaving. Europeanization means the growth of a new consciousness that transcends national identity, an "esprit" that no longer regards other cultures and languages as obstacles but rather as enriching elements on the European scene, providing opportunities for individual and social advancement.

In this process, education is a prime force. It is therefore the focus of the first of the several research questions we propose.

Research Questions

1. How are curricula, standards, and requirements at different levels of the educational system changing in connection with the Europeanization of the labour market? In which countries, in what respects, and through which agents/agencies? In particular, how are the processes of assessment and credentialling changing as opportunities for mobility increase?

We suggest a focus on two levels, upper secondary and post-secondary schooling and training, and on general academic and vocational/ professional programmes at each level. Changes in curriculum, standards, and requirements refer to the increasing emphasis on vocationally-relevant courses, "European" studies, convergence of assessment standards, techniques, and structures, performance-based assessment, greater access to post-compulsory education and training, and retraining opportunities.¹⁰

One issue of special interest is the external pressure on education and training requirements generated by the opportunities for greater mobility of labour. Some nations are conscious that their requirements for certain occupations are more demanding than those of their neighbours. For example, Germany is currently having to consider the inconsistency between its own rigorous requirement of 13 years of education prior to university and the standard 12 years common in the other EC member States. Others member States are becoming conscious that the standards they expect high school graduates or entrants to professional training programmes to reach are relatively low.

As labour mobility in Europe increases, interest is likely to focus on what candidates for a particular qualification or position can do, rather than on what knowledge they have acquired as a result of their education and training. We direct attention to the extent to which the European nations are turning from the traditional written examinations and interviews to reliance upon work experience, performance testing, and profiles of achievement.

2. How open in practice is the labour market to individuals wishing to live and work in another member State?

Whereas in formal terms legislation and regulations have opened doors to greater mobility, the extent to which this has in fact occurred remains uncertain. Community policies toward the "Europeanization" of credentials have changed in the past and may be further reformulated in the years following 1993. Additional formal measures may be necessary to facilitate the movement of individuals in specific credentialled occupations. We suggest monitoring current developments with respect to setting European standards for education and training, international equivalence, and mutual recognition of qualifications. This will enable us to identify some of the problems, the obstacles to agreement, and the solutions that become acceptable to the participants.

Data could also be gathered on the migration patterns of qualified persons among the EC countries in the past ten years, and over the first three years of the Single Market (1993-96). These patterns can be compared with the numbers of qualified persons from non-EEC countries entering the Community countries for work. This will indicate which occupations in which countries have proved to be most attractive to migrants, and whether such migration is greater among the EC countries.

Finally, gathering anecdotal information concerning the experience of individuals in a few selected occupations will provide a valuable supplement for determining what barriers remain to the free movement of qualified personnel.

3. How are the educational opportunities, qualification levels, and employment of women and girls being affected by the wider European labour market? To what extent is the commitment to equality for women being met?

While most western European nations, both EC and non-EC, have in some form forbidden discrimination, the labour market continues to reflect past discrimination against women. In most European countries, the proportion of females in total enrollment in general secondary and higher education stands at 50 per cent or higher, yet females are still typically underrepresented in those lines of professional and vocational education and training with most prestige and status.

The EC has issued several directives on equal opportunities for females, having important implications for schooling, qualifications, and social and labour policies. For example, Council Directive 75/117/EEC addressed the issue of equal pay while 76/207/EEC dealt with equal treatment. The 1976 Directive specified that: "Vocational guidance, vocational training, advanced vocational training and retraining should be accessible on the basis of the same criteria and at the same levels without any discrimination on the basis of sex."

Two EC action programmes (in 1985-87 and 1986-1990) were prompted by fears that unemployment among young females might rise and by the needs of special groups, such as older women, requiring special assistance in training or retraining. The overall objective was to integrate women in employment and in professional and social life. Yet a wide gap remains between principle and implementation. For example, despite repeated calls for more training provisions for females in the new technologies, much of the existing training is still associated with traditionally female occupations. And even when training is provided in new areas, it is often so narrow that women are quickly left with obsolete skills.¹¹

In the course of addressing Questions 1 and 2 above, comparisons should be made between male and female participation in education, training, and employment, and in mobility across selected European borders.

4. What is the nature of the political debate on these changes of education and credentials in each country? Who are the participants in the debates and what are the obstacles to and catalysts of change?

Each major step toward changing national credentials to better fit a European norm provokes opposition from some quarter or other. Responses to these changes often reflect attitudes to the extension of the powers of the Community in general. Some in the educating professions are very enthusiastic about Europeanization, while others complain that they are being asked to make changes without being consulted and without being given the necessary resources, and that the demands are diversions from the 'proper' ends of education. Leaders of national organizations often express fears of loss of national autonomy and national control of curriculum content. Professional organizations object to loss of control over the structure and content of qualifications leading to entry into their respective occupations.

The usual pattern has been for the EC to set up a commission for a particular task, invite countries to participate, study and then make recommendations for member States to amend and adopt in the form of a treaty or convention. This procedure permits countries to move toward a set of stated targets more or less at their own pace. Over time, the discretion of countries has tended to become more limited as the European Commission has issued directives based on those treaties and as the European Court of Justice has issued rulings in response to questions brought before it. We propose to document the growing role of the European Commission and the Court of Justice and the challenge they present to national authorities and their autonomy in matters of education and credentialling.

Over time, changes have occurred in the Community's approach toward the internationalization of credentials. Up to the mid-1980s, most of the discussions and action on international equivalency of credentials had been directed toward harmonization of credentials, occupation by occupation. However, beginning in the 1980s, the emphasis changed from "harmonization" to "mutual recognition" of credentials. What are the reasons behind this change of overall strategy, and the significance for the future with respect to policy and procedures? Are European credentials likely to develop? If so, for which credentials, and in what form? Are they likely to supplant or complement national credentials?

Over the past 15 years, bi- and multi-lateral agreements have been made with respect to the setting of European standards for education and training and, in particular, with respect to the international equivalency and mutual recognition of qualifications. Tracing these agreements and, more importantly, analyzing the substance of the discussions and reports leading up to them, will identify the participants in the process and their roles, their (changing) relationships and powers, the solutions that became acceptable to them, and the obstacles that stood (and stand) in the way of agreement.

Differing and often opposing views are expressed in the normal way in the mass media and specialist publications, and in parliamentary debates. We propose an examination of these sources, to report on the major participants in the debate, the roles they perform, the nature of the arguments, and the extent to which they influence the outcomes.

5. What are the major parallels (and differences) in the experience of the United States and Europe with respect to the relation between the degree of openness of the labor market and education and credentialling?

North America offers two units of potentially illuminating comparison with Europe: the United States and the prospective North American Free Trade Area. While it is too early to assess the effect of NAFTA upon the matters under consideration, the United States provides a long established model for comparison. In both the US and the EC, formal sovereignty in educational matters lies with the "second-tier" of constitutional authorities -- the 50 states and the 12 member States, respectively. The US already has its well-developed, exceptionally stable federal system; the EC is in the midst of creating a tighter confederation, some individuals and member States even working toward an eventual United States of Europe. On each side of the Atlantic, therefore, we find separate systems of education, training, and credentialling coexisting with labor markets that are in one case (the US) exceptionally open, and in the other (the EC) opening more and more as time passes. To compare the development of agreements about harmonization, equivalence, and transferability between the European nations and the United States offers an expanded opportunity to analyse interactions among education, qualifications and the labour market.

In the United States, local and state control of general secondary education has contributed to the absence of a common national path to higher and professional qualifications, and indeed little consensus on what such a path might look like. Each state has enjoyed the right to set its own standards, resulting in widely differing requirements and qualifications. The common school ideal and the long-established principle of open access through comprehensive schooling provided some nation-wide basis of educational goals and experience. But this stopped far short of a common curriculum of knowledge and skills, uniform standards of achievement, or a nation-wide credential related to subsequent education, training, and entry to the labor market. Private testing agencies, such as the Educational Testing Service and the American College Test Program, developed in response to the need for yardsticks that could be used to select candidates for higher education and professional training. Independent accrediting agencies comprising representatives of professional organizations and State government were established to set standards for higher education institutions and professional schools. In some occupations (for example, in medical education), the power and status of a national professional organization were sufficient to establish common standards. However, a license to practice a particular profession usually requires passing a state examinations in the particular state in which it is desired to practice, in addition to obtaining a relevant higher education diploma. And the US continues to struggle with such issues as national standards in education, national assessment procedures, and qualifications for teachers.¹²

As the EC has progressively extended the scope of its activities, the Twelve, like the US, have also had to deal with the problems of arranging that a qualification obtained in one jurisdiction is acceptable in another. The process began with negotiations intended to achieve harmonization, occupation by occupation, and is presently governed by the principle of mutual recognition, embodied in the Single Act. In many ways, Europe faces much more difficult problems in adapting education and credentials to the demands of an open labor market than has the United States. The educational traditions, customs, and structures of the European countries are substantially more different from one another than the educational histories and current arrangements of the states of the US. The European nations lack the unifying framework that is provided by a long-standing common school ideal, though this has emerged quite strongly in Europe since mid-century. Also, all-European professional organizations are still much weaker than their national counterparts in the United States. Moreover, the United States has had two centuries to work out the form of the relationship between a national labour market and educational and credentialling structures that are largely state-based, while the European nations must face the problems of adjustment in a much shorter time frame.

Given these differences, we believe that there would be merit in a comparison of the responses of the two political units, the United States and the European Community, to the economic pressures to change educational arrangements and credentialling characteristics. In particular, we expect to be able to show how different circumstances in the two polities have shaped their different approaches to the rights of access to employment, assessment practices, credentialling, and the establishment of the mutual recognition and/or equivalence of credentials.

Conjectures

Research on the preceding questions will offer an opportunity to document the complex interactions among education, qualifications, and the economy. We here offer a number of conjectures about what we expect to discover with respect to several relevant themes and relationships.

1. On the Europeanization of credentials The pressures that have moved policy from an emphasis on harmonization to the principle of mutual recognition are likely to continue, and will in time, we believe, lead to all-European credentials and to coordination and confluence of the roads leading to them. Such all-European credentials will most probably remain complementary to existing national credentials, rather than become substitutes for them.

As between vocational-professional qualifications and academic qualifications, the former are closer to employment and the labour market than the latter. Hence, given also the Community's high interest in fuller employment policies and enhanced internal mobility of labour, we expect that the movement to create and adopt European credentials will be faster in the vocational/professional than in the academic areas.

2. On ways of assessment and credentialling We expect to see a continuing trend away from primary reliance on one type of assessment, written examinations of the traditional type, toward assessment with multiple characteristics -- the traditional written examination no doubt remaining, but augmented by submission of portfolios of work done, records of achievement and experience, and extended external- and self-critiques of the materials submitted for assessment. In addition, we expect to see movement toward so-called bilans or dossiers of study and experience.

We conjecture that this trend away from primary reliance on formal written examinations will be most evident in assessment for entry into and graduation from professional training programmes. In particular, we believe that mutual recognition of professional/technical qualifications will increasingly be based on comparison of training and work experiences as related to tasks to be performed on the job, rather than on equivalence of formal qualifications.

While we expect also to see continuing debate over and innovation in the form of end-of-secondary school general education qualifications, we expect to find that admission to higher education will continue to rely primarily on credentials acquired through written achievement examinations.

3. On the effects of freer movement of highly educated professionals upon agencies that certify and control membership in specific occupations, in particular, the traditionally self-governing professions, such as medicine. Professional and craft organizations have been very effective in limiting entry to their respective occupations, thus "maintaining standards" -- and (not incidentally) the incomes of their members. For many of these organizations, limiting entry by imposing high standards of training and experience and lengthy periods of apprenticeship has been their primary and best defended function. Most of them enjoy legislative and regulatory arrangements arming them with power to license new entrants, restrict competition among their members, establish fee schedules, and the like.

We expect that these professional and craft organizations will perceive serious threats in the pressure of the European Commission to permit more competition in matters of entry and pricing of services and, in particular, to open their occupations to foreigners. We expect to report a record of footdragging and downright obstructionism to EC initiatives from these quarters.

4. On the relative pace of change in education/ credentialling and the labour market It is normal for changes in education, training, qualifications, and the labour market to proceed unevenly. This has certainly been so in the EC, where, despite the rhetoric promoting changes in education and training as the key to enhanced productivity and international competitiveness, Europeanization to date has proceeded much further in the trade, monetary, and political areas, than in education, training, and their associated credentials. We expect that this difference in pace will continue, as increasing attention to the development of "social Europe" is more than matched by developments on the economic and political fronts.

Thus, we expect to conclude that changes in the EC labour markets have driven changes in education, training, and qualifications, and not vice-versa.

5. On the effects of increasing Europeanization of labour markets on the training activities of employers The EC and its member governments have encouraged employers and unions to enter into various kinds of working arrangements with the education system as "social partners." Moreover, the EC's "active employment policy" in an integrated Europe calls for training and employment policies that encourage movement of workers to another firm, another occupation, even another nation, especially when technological advances are transforming and even making obsolete entire occupations and industries. Meanwhile, firms have always worried that they may train their employees and apprentices so well that their competitors will hire them away. Large firms seem to be less concerned over this than small firms.

We expect to find that this difference according to size will persist; that large employers will probably increase the amount of training they provide; that small employers will continue to be reluctant to offer much training; and that the specific effects of an integrated labour market on employers' willingness to provide training will not be distinguishable from the secular trend for all employers to provide more training as the technologies used in production become more complex.

6. On the relationship between political attitudes toward the EC and educational restructuring The governments of the Twelve have very different views of the benefits and costs of the EC as presently constituted, and as proposed for the future. Spain, for example, has been very enthusiastic about the Community and plans for its further development; Britain has been a determined opponent of all projects that look "visionary," wanting to make sure that the country is not being pushed into programmes leading to further loss of British sovereignty. These are differences of general political attitude toward the EC. In addition, there are many differences of view over particulars. For example, the French are strong defenders of the Community's costly agricultural support policies, against the opposition of Spain, Italy, and Britain. The Germans (at least until recently) have wanted to move faster toward a European equivalent of the US Federal Reserve Bank than do most of the other member States, particularly the British and the French. The smaller member States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, and Luxembourg take a much more favorable view of plans for a closer political and financial union than do the larger countries, which have more real sovereignty to lose. The British government is particularly hostile to assorted plans for an eventual United States of Europe, an all-European currency, or a European Reserve Bank--especially if it is located in Frankfurt! The British government has also voiced strong criticism of the idea of a "social Europe," arguing that the Community should stick closer to the original, narrower concept of creating a wider economic space in Europe, leaving social policies (including education) to the individual member States.

Each member State's record of adapting its systems of education, training, and credentialling to fit the new European realities will be strongly associated, we conjecture, with these differences in viewpoint and attitude. More specifically, we believe that the countries with a more pro-Europe stance, such as Spain and Italy, are likely to take more extensive steps to Europeanize than, say, the British, going even beyond the France and Germany.

7. On alternative paths toward integration of education, qualifications, and the labour market The final item on this proposed research agenda affords an opportunity to compare the well-established federal system of the United States with a European one that is in the process of integrating, without having yet achieved a cohesive political union. It is highly probable that within, say, 15 years the EC will have moved quite far and fast along the road to labour market integration. The EC and the US are then likely to present two quite different models of adapting distinct education and training systems to the existence of a single labour market. The EC approach will be based on deliberate measures embodied in Community-wide legislation, to Europeanize curricula and to implement mutual recognition of credentials and qualifications; the US model is likely to exhibit a far smaller degree of deliberate, country-wide organization. Our final conjecture is, paradoxically, that the EC with a confederal structure still far from completely realized will be then more "coordinated" in its educational arrangements than the US, despite the latter's time-tested, solid political federation.

Conclusions

Relationships among the labour market, education, and credentialling are never easy to pin down. Analysts and policy makers are well aware that, in general, these relationships are interactive, but they are less clear about how they are affected by specific and deliberate policies. This outline of some key items for research study offers an opportunity to take advantage of the distinctive way in which change is being accomplished in Europe -- via a complex mixture of treaty provisions setting overall goals and frameworks, regulations issuing from a "central" authority (the European Commission), specific occupational agreements, Community-wide programmes, and member States' individual initiatives proceeding toward commonly agreed upon goals, even though at different speeds. This agenda focuses on the changes occurring in European education and credentialling, consequent upon the opening of labour markets to the free movement of persons.

A distinctive characteristic of the current European situation is that a very large labour market is being suddenly opened after centuries of fragmentation and extreme segmentation. This is a kind of "natural experiment." The effects of such a rapidly opening labour market are likely to be exceptionally strong, and consequently reveal more than is typically possible about the effect of the labour market changes on education, training, and credentials.

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APPENDIX. Community-wide Educational Programmes

Some of the more significant programmes include:

ERASMUS (European Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students), launched in 1987 to increase the number of university students spending a period of study in another member State. The major programme involves approximately 3,600 higher education institutions and six million students. It seeks also to promote inter-university cooperation and to develop a pool of graduates with transnational educational experience within the Community. Measures are being undertaken to develop academic recognition of diplomas. and arrangements for students to study in an EC university outside their own country.13

COMETT (Community Action Programme for Education and Training for Technology) seeks to enhance links between universities and industry, and to improve training to meet the specific needs of new technologies. Through transnational partnerships, students are placed in firms located in other member States. In addition, two-way exchanges of staff and trainers take place between educational institutions and firms. In its first three years of operation, the programme (begun in July 1986) facilitated the cooperation of more than 200 enterprises, 1000 universities, and 750 other organizations in providing study and work experience.13

PETRA, started in 1987, is a continuing education programme, promoting the "training and preparation of young people after their full-time compulsory schooling to enable them to enter adulthood and the world of work with adequate skills." Approximately 154 training projects make up a European network of vocational training initiatives in the form of transnational partnerships.

LINGUA is an example of an educational programme directed at the improvement of a specific curriculum area. Launched in 1988 to promote foreign language teaching and learning in the Community, its activities include: providing support for the initial and continuing training of language teachers (linked with ERASMUS); development of teaching materials; pupil and teacher exchanges; and diagnosing the language needs of the business world.

Other programmes include:

ARION (Programme of Study Visits for Education Specialists)

BRITE (Basic Research in Industrial Technologies for Europe)

DELTA (Development of European Learning Through Technological Advance)

ECTS (European Community Course Credit Transfer Scheme)

Education of Migrant Workers' Children

ESPRIT (European Strategic Programme for Research and Development in Information Technology)

EUROTECHNET (Action Programme in the Field of New Technologies and Vocational Training

EURYDICE (Education Information Network in the European Community)

Exchange of Young Workers

HELIOS (European Action Programme in Favor of Disabled Workers)

IRIS (European Network of Training Schemes for Women)

RACE (Research and Development in Advanced Communications Technologies for Europe)

SCIENCE (Plan to Stimulate the International Cooperation and Interchange Needed by Research Scientists)

YES (Youth Exchange Scheme)

NOTES

1. On the pace of introduction of "European" elements into school curricula, see Raymond Ryba, "Toward a European Dimension in Education: Intention and Reality in European Community Policy and Practice". Comparative Education Review 36:1 (1992), pp. 10- 24. [BACK]

2. Oxford Review of Economic Policy 4:3 (1988). Special Issue on "Education, Training and Economic Performance."[BACK]

3. For a description and analysis of pilot projects in the EC second program on young people's transition from schooling to working life, see: John Banks, Transition of Young People from Education to Adult and Working Life. Brussels: IFAPLAN, June 1987 (European Community Action Program, School-Industry Links, Working Document); and Michael Bolle et al., Vocational Training and Job Creation Schemes in the Countries of the European Community. Berlin: CEDEFOP, 1987. [BACK]

4. See Appendix for a selection of EC education and training programmes. [BACK]

5. Ladislav Cerych, "Higher Education and Europe after 1992: the framework;" and Guy Neave, "On Articulating Secondary School, Higher Education and 1992" European Journal of Education 24:4 (1989), pp. 321-332 and 351-363. [BACK]

6. Clark Kerr, "The Internationalisation of Learning and the Nationalisation of the Purposes of Higher Education: two 'laws of motion' in conflict?" European Journal of Education 25:1 (1990), p. 16. [BACK]

7. Louis H. Orzak, International Authority and Professions: The State Beyond the Nation-State. San Domenico, Italy: European University Institute, 1992; and Louis H. Orzack, "The General Systems Directive: Education and the Liberal Professions," in L. Hurwitz and C. Lequesne, editors, The State of the European Community: Politics, Institutions, and Debates in the Transition Years, 1989-1990. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner, 1991. [BACK]

8. See Guide des professions dans l'optique du Grand Marché. Brussels: European Commission, 1988, for a complete listing of these directives. [BACK]

9. L'achèvement du marché int érieur: Livre blanc de la Commission à l'intention du Conseil européen. Milan, 28-29 June, 1985. This called for completion by December 31, 1992 of a total and irreversible fusion of the twelve member States' markets into a single common market of over 320 million consumers and producers. The White Book also commended the principle of the mutual recognition of member States' technical standards (including credentials) in place of attempts to harmonize these standards and credentials along common lines. [BACK]

10. Guy Neave, "On Articulating Secondary School, Higher Education and 1992"; Franco Carinci, "The Impact of Post- 1992 Europe on Law Studies"; Angel Luis Gonzalo and Jorge Peres, "1992 and Changes in the Content and Structure of Engineering Studies"; Hans Karle and Thomas Kennedy, "Medical Education in the European Communities: moving toward 1993 and beyond" European Journal of Education 24:4 (1989), pp. 351-363; 381-387; 389-398; and 399-410. [BACK]

11. In a 1985 report, CEDEFOP stated: "...Of the new training measures designed specifically for women, only a few are intended to qualify the trainees for the production or application of new technologies." Moreover, in vocational courses specifically designed for women, CEDEFOP concluded that the nature and rate of employment after training were below standard. Programs providing for equal access often lacked provision for women to enter the labour market, thus were unlikely to improve the outcomes of their education or training. [BACK]

12. Under the auspices of the federal government, an effort to promote the establishment of national standards in the major school subject areas is now underway in the US. See, Raising Standards for American Education. A Report to Congress, the Secretary of Education, the National Education Goals Panel, and the American People. Washington, D.C.: The National Council on Education Standards and Testing, January 24, 1992. [BACK]