The European Commission presented a new strategy with the aim to encourage Member States to take immediate action to ensure that young people develop the skills and competences needed by the labour market and to achieve their targets for growth and jobs.

The new Rethinking Education strategy presented by the European Commission calls for a fundamental shift in education, with more focus on 'learning outcomes' - the knowledge, skills and competences that students acquire. In addition, basic literacy and numeracy still needs to be significantly improved, and entrepreneurial skills and a sense of initiative need to be developed or strengthened. A study recently published by the Commission showed that the European schools are still paying insufficient attention to the IT, entrepreneurial and citizenship skills.

The European Commission seeks with this strategy to encourage member states to take immediate measures. Among the measures proposed, it includes a new benchmark on language learning, guidelines on the assessment and development of entrepreneurship education, and an EU-level impact analysis on the use of ICT and open educational resources (OER) in education to pave the way for a new initiative in 2013 on Opening-up Education, aiming to maximise the potential of ICT for learning.

Moreover, the new strategy proposes to ensure that education is more relevant to the needs of students and the labour market, assessment methods need to be adapted and modernised. Teachers need to update their own skills through regular training. The strategy also calls on member states to strengthen links between education and employers, to bring enterprise into the classroom and to give young people a taste of employment through increased work-based learning. EU Education Ministers are also encouraged to step-up their cooperation on work-based learning at national and European level.