Lords debate on modernising higher education in Europe

By Baroness Margaret Sharp. The main job of the European Union select committee in the House of Lords is to monitor the UK government’s handling of the multitude of proposals, programmes and directives that emanate from the European Union (EU).
The Modernisation of Higher Education in Europe debate, which took place on 11 October, was about proposals published in September by the European Commission titled Supporting Growth and Jobs – an Agenda for the Modernisation of Europe’s Higher Education Systems [COM (2011) 567].
The commission’s thesis was that the potential contribution of higher education to Europe’s prosperity remains underexploited.
While acknowledging that education is a member state, not an EU, responsibility, they want to see a number of actions that would build on the current Erasmus and Bologna programmes, encouraging collaboration and the exchange of students, promoting closer links between academia and industry and making sure that other EU programmes such as Horizon 2020 and-or Structural Funds contribute to these objectives. More...