The European credit system for vocational education and training (ECVET) has benefited from the development of national qualifications frameworks and the learning outcomes approach to qualifications. It has also profited from the mutual trust and transparency created by successful learning mobility and lifelong learning experiences. The year 2012…

For at least two decades, politicians, academics and other stakeholders have advocated cooperation across sectors, administrative layers and other institutionalised boundaries to achieve objectives of what are called "learning regions" and the "lifelong learning perspective". Boundaries between geographical, institutional and sectors are becoming…

Since its creation in 1958, the European Social Fund (ESF) has played a major role in supporting the development of vocational training in the Member States. However, compared to other, more recently launched, EU programmes and initiatives in the area of education and training, the ESF has not made a significant contribution to the debate about…

Economic growth is stimulated through learning. In "the learning economies" of those European regions that chose to develop their human and intellectual capital wisely, benefits have been visible. But this is a one-dimensional outlook in a multi-dimensional world. A "Learning Region" is an entirely different entity, pooling and…

On a frigid Martin Luther King Day in 2008, some 800 parents and youth from neighborhoods throughout New York City rallied at St. Paul's Church in lower Manhattan, and marched to the headquarters of the city's Department of Education to launch a citywide middle grades school improvement effort. The rally was organized by the New York City…

The EU's lifelong learning policy has emerged as an overarching educational reform policy intended to address a wide range of issues, including education, employment and competitiveness. The question has been raised as to whether the resulting policy is merely a catch-all concept that can be applied to any needs or whether it is underpinned by a…

In 2000, the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) launched the programme "Learning Regions--Providing Support for Networks'" in cooperation with the Lander. It was co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF). Some 90 regions were selected and financially supported. After one year, 71 regions continued to build-up…