All the EU education ministers except the British minister whose country is in the process of forming government, backed on Tuesday the Spanish Presidency proposal to reduce the average school drop-out rate to 10 per cent by 2020 (currently, the average rate is 15 per cent) and increase to  40 per cent the number of university graduates or those with higher-level vocation training.

The Spanish Presidency will submit this proposal to the Council of EU Heads of States and Governments in June with “absolute confidence” that the numerical commitments will be endorsed at the meeting, Spain's Education Minister, Ángel Gabilondo, told a press conference after the council of Education, Culture, Youth and Sport that is taking place in Brussels.

Both the Spanish minister and the EU Commissioner for Education, Androulla Vassiliou, said they were persuaded the United Kingdom would join these commitments when a new government is formed, while both pointed out that this was not about every country meeting these goals but that member states should "realistically" set their own goals in collaboration with the European Commission.

Education ministers also unanimously approved three reports on the social dimension of education, the internationalization of higher education and on new skills for new jobs.

Concerning the latter the EU Commissioner warned that in 2020, 35 per cent of jobs (or 15 million posts) will require highly-qualified workers.

Youth and employment

The Spanish Minister for Equality, Bibiana Aido, explained in a press conference after the Council of Youth the issues discussed on youth and employment.

According to her declarations, "the economic crisis has treated younger people particularly severely," which "has translated into high levels of unemployment". "Today we have marked the coordinates for youth issues in preparation for the European Council in June, via a resolution on social inclusion and employment among young people and the development of a youth dimension in the 2020 Strategy."

The 2020 strategy is going to set the goal of achieving 75 per cent employment among women and men in Europe, but in order to fulfil this objective, three key aspects included in the resolution are necessary:

• A higher proportion of young people in the labour market.
• Improvements in education and training levels.
• The fostering of reconciliation of private and working lives.

The minister underlined mobility, "both geographical and social" as being another of the factors for improving young people's access to the labour market, which comes within the Youth in Movement initiative, a programme that "will form part of the 2020 Strategy as one of its outstanding measures."