EDUCATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

EDUCATION IN THE EUROPEAN UNION

EDUCATION

The Treaty of Rome, together with the Maastricht Treaty, allows the Community to 'contribute to the development of quality education by encouraging cooperation between Member States and, if necessary, by supporting and supplementing their action, while respecting the organisation of educational system and cultural and linguistic diversity of Member States'. It is stressed that action is to be aimed at 'developing the European dimension in education', especially at language teaching and student and teacher exchanges.

In 1995, the Socrates programme replaced the earlier ERASMUS (European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) and Lingua programmes in the field of student and teacher exchanges, language teaching and other activities concerned with the European dimension in education.

2001 was declared the European Year of languages, the aim being to celebrate Europe's linguistic diversity and to promote language learning.