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Sefcovic: Education System One of EU's Main Problems
Thursday 04 March 2010 Zoom in | Print page
Bratislava, March 4 (TASR) – The education system is one of the key problems of the European Union and there should be an intense focus on this sphere, said Slovak EU Commissioner for Inter-institutional Relations Maros Sefcovic after giving a speech to the Slovak Parliament on Thursday.
Very few European universities are included on the list of the 100 best universities in the world. In addition, the EU is also falling behind in the proportion of university-educated people, said Sefcovic, specifying that only 31 percent of Europeans have a university education, while the figure is 40 percent in the U.S.A. and 50 percent in Japan.
According to the Slovak EU Commissioner, secondary-school education and compulsory education are another thorn in the EU's side. One in seven students in the EU doesn't finish secondary-school education, which represents 15 percent of the EU population. Sefcovic thinks that it will be a very big challenge for some countries to get the proportion under 10 percent. Slovakia isn't among them, however, as it is near the top in the EU in this respect.
Conversely, Slovakia hasn't avoided the negative trend of a steep decline in reading literacy. Sefcovic blames the era of computers and computer games for the fact that 15-year-olds have problems with reading, while one in four has difficulties understanding a written text. "It's obvious that school systems in the whole EU will have to react to new challenges and adjust their education systems to this," he said.
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