Council conclusions on increasing the level of basic skills

The Council adopted conclusions on increasing the level of basic skills in the context of European cooperation on schools for the 21st century.

The conclusions recognise that more effective action needs to be taken to achieve the benchmarks on reading and numeracy skills set for 2020. They also highlight several areas where attention should be paid, including curriculum design, motivation for reading literacy, the impact of new technologies and the gender dimension.

The Commission is invited to set up a high-level expert group to examine the most effective ways of supporting reading literacy, with a view to proposing policy action in the first half of 2012.