Conclusions on new assessment indicators - Ministers insist multilingualism must be included in education systems

The 23 May Education Council adopted conclusions on the development of new indicators for assessing education and training. Recalling the importance of regular monitoring of progress by means of indicators and reference criteria adjusted to match the changes in knowledge and society, in order to identify strengths and weaknesses in education and training, the ministers urged the Commission to draw up strategies for effective investment, ITC, mobility, the training of adult, teacher and trainers themselves, professional education, social inclusions and active citizenship, and to publish detailed proposals on the development of new indicators of the 'ability to teach how to learn' (teacher training), along with linguistic skills and other areas where new research could prove useful. The President of the Council said the conclusions stress the need to make best use of existing data and indicators and step up cooperation with organisations active in this area to avoid duplicating work and to improve the coherence of collected data