Includ-ed, red europea de educación inclusiva

The incluD-ed network is very interested and involved in European policies and actions that affect people with special educational needs. After incluD-ed’s latest position paper on the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) that aimed to influence the preparation of PISA 2015 and future PISA editions, incluD-ed sent its newest position paper on the EPSCO Council Recommendation on Implementing a Youth Guarantee mid-October.

Already on 28 February 2013, the EPSCO Council approved the Youth Guarantee; a measure intended to facilitate access to the labour market for young people within the EU. Anyone up to the age of 25 “shall receive an offer of [good quality] employment, continued education, an apprenticeship or a training within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving formal education” (The Council of the European Union 2013, p.9).

The Youth Guarantee forms part of the Youth Employment Package, which aims to combat youth unemployment in the EU, and for which funding of €8 billion has been agreed upon on 27 June by the European Council and the European Commission (EP Library 2013).

incluD-ed fully supports the good intentions and the engagement in this field shown by the EPSCO Council and the European Commission, since one of the objectives of this European network is to actively contribute to the promotion of equal opportunities in the educational context including access to higher education, with the aim of improving employability and work inclusion for people with disabilities.

However, incluD-ed would like to express its opinion regarding several aspects of the Youth Guarantee since the economic crisis that has affected most of the European Member states since 2008/09 has generated high youth unemployment and cuts in public spending, which particularly affect people with disabilities.

The network theme: “Transition to adult life and the labour market” includes our efforts to offer support mechanisms in social and communicative skills, lifelong learning, proper training and other relevant actions to improve employability and facilitate entry to and development in the job market.

The position paper on the EPSCO Council Recommendation on Implementing a Youth Guarantee has been prepared in reaction to the Youth Guarantee and the text “Tackling Youth Unemployment: possible ways out” adopted by the European Parliament on 11 September 2013, with the aim of drawing attention to the situation of young people with disabilities.

The position paper underlines the following points:

• - incluD-ed welcomes the good practice implementation of a Youth Guarantee
• - incluD-ed calls for higher funding of the Youth Guarantee
• - incluD-ed demands investment in education and training systems
• - incluD-ed calls to support people with disabilities in these moments of crisis
• - incluD-ed proposes concrete national action plans
• - incluD-ed requests to increase quality of national education systems and Vocational Educational Training (VET)
• - incluD-ed asks for close monitoring of Member States’ actions
• - incluD-ed requests to improve work and training mobility for young people with disabilities
• - incluD-ed asks to develop the European and national level long-term solutions
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Read the complete position paper

Recipients were the European Commission - DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, members of the European Parliament responsible for the initiative Implementation of the EU youth strategy 2010-2012 “Tackling youth unemployment: possible ways out”, the Brussels contacts of the incluD-ed network, all Employment Committee and  Disability Intergroup members as well as Employment and Education Counsellors in all Permanent EU Member states Representations.