Northern and Western Europe

As efforts continue to create a European education area, cooperation in the education sector has become an important part of European integration. The EU internal market and international competition are making new demands in terms of training levels and mobility of trainees and employees. They also make it essential to gear national education systems more to European and international standards. This applies in particular to Germany, with its central geographical location at the heart of Europe.

In 2002, 30 European states adopted a common education-policy work programme at European level, with the goal of making the European education and labour market more transparent and making it easier to move from one state to another. Equally, they aim to make the European Union a dynamic, knowledge-based economic area. The EU education programmes LEONARDO DA VINCI and SOCRATES have become the most important instruments in efforts to create a European education area.

Since the early nineties, InWEnt has been involved in the overall steering of these mobility measures, working on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). LEONARDO DA VINCI is a programme that encourages the mobility of young people in vocational training, and supports innovations in the European vocational training system. Various German training facilities and private businesses are involved in this programme, within the framework of some 500 separate projects. SOCRATES is a programme to promote European cooperation in the general education sector, and embraces all aspects of education from school to adult education. It aims to support citizens of the EU in their life-long learning activities.

InWEnt is promoting training and upgrading measures in the field of vocational training for trainees, those already in a job and instructors in a total of 31 European states. Bilateral programmes with the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Norway and Israel, which InWEnt is implementing on behalf of the BMBF, complement the range of mobility programmes available to trainees.

At present, on behalf of the BMBF, InWEnt provides foreign training opportunities for more than 8,000 German programme participants.