Eurocommissaris Vassiliou streeft naar studeren in buitenland hogescholen (en)

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is a real pleasure to be here with you for the 25th anniversary conference of the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities.

I would like to thank the EADTU, the Cyprus EU Presidency and the Open University of Cyprus for the fine job they have done in organising the event.

The focus of the conference - the role of open and flexible education in European Higher Education systems- is a theme that we will be discussing more and more in the coming years. And the reason for this is simple.

Education and skills are a key driver of innovation and growth. They are a core strategic asset for Europe: the fact is, we are going to need a much larger skilled workforce if we are going to remain competitive with our partners in the global economy.

But it will not be easy for our institutions of higher education to adapt their models fast enough to meet the demand.

So, if we want to help people acquire the skills they need to meet the demand from the labour market, then we must engage in a fundamental transformation of our education and training systems.

And we need to fully exploit the potential that open and flexible education offers.

Because this transformation confronts us with two issues.

The first challenge is producing more higher education graduates. According to estimates by the European agency responsible for the development of vocational training, employers will need 16 million more highly-qualified people for skilled jobs between 2010 and 2020.

But the number of jobs requiring people with low formal qualifications is expected to decline rapidly by around 12 million during the same period.

The difficulty we are facing in relation to this is that the demographics are against us: years of declining birth rates in most Member States will leave young people in short supply. So we need to attract a wider cross-section of society into higher education. For this, we need to look beyond the traditional higher education cohorts.

The second challenge is the need to develop new skills and capacities. On this, I will soon be presenting a European strategy on "Rethinking skills" that underlines the relevance of transversal skills for the 21st century economy.

The issue here is that knowledge-based economies need people who are able to think critically, take initiative, be entrepreneurial, communicate effectively in more than one language and work in teams.

But traditional pedagogies can hardly provide such skills and competences. So we need radical pedagogical and organisational reforms, based on more cross-curricular and innovative approaches. This includes the use of the open technologies and educational resources that we will address at this conference.

In fact, the availability and quality of Distance learning will become more and more important.

Distance learning has traditionally played an important role in improving access to education and training.

Many people, young and adult, have been able to study only thanks to distance education institutions. These institutions have been essential players in the "democratisation" of higher education.

But this is even truer with the Information and Communication Technologies revolution.

In fact, I believe that distant education will see its role greatly expanded in the new circumstances of the 21st century. The demand for higher education has never been greater, and will continue to grow. At the same time, there are severe constraints on the capacity of the university system to accommodate the many students who aspire to a higher education.

In this situation distance learning institutions are uniquely placed to take care of the educational needs of all those students who - for any reason - cannot attend a conventional institution. They could be workers or senior students, drop-outs, students with a medical condition or living in remote or isolated areas; or simply, students who can't afford to pay the increasingly expensive price of a university education.

For all of them - and they are many - distance education can be the only solution.

But distant education providers also face a challenge of their own. How can they move away from the traditional teacher-centred model, and take up the new learner-oriented models that are being developed in all major institutions? In fewer words, how can they overcome the distance that, by definition, separates them from their students?

The answer is that they will have to embrace - even more than they are doing right now - the opportunities of the new technologies for live, collaborative and on-line interaction between the teacher and the students, as well as between the students themselves. And for this they will need the support of their governments.

ICT are nowadays one of the major drivers of societal and economic change. They have changed our way of working, communicating and living. I believe that they are now about to change the way we learn through developments like the "Open Educational Resources Movement".

I have no doubt that Open Education Resources represent a strategic opportunity to improve the quality, efficiency and equity of education.

They facilitate a more interactive, creative, flexible and personalised participation in the learning process. The result is that an individual can study everywhere, anytime, while education materials can be re-used, adapted and customised.

This is a challenge, but also an extraordinary opportunity in particular for the providers of distance education.

The fact is that, unfortunately, our schools and universities in Europe are not currently satisfying the demand for ICT and OER in education.

Europe clearly needs to exploit fully this potential. Because failing to do so could have critical consequences for the European economy, as I have said, but also for our society, because the risk would be a further widening of "the digital divide between digital literates and illiterates.

For all these reasons, I am planning to launch a new "Opening-up Education Initiative" by the middle of next year aimed indeed to tap into the potential of ICT and Open Education Resources.

I have also made sure that the Erasmus for All programme that the Commission is proposing for 2014-2020 includes support for higher education institutions, to help them use the full potential of modern teaching and learning modes. It means, for instance, encouraging institutions to include virtual mobility alongside traditional learning mobility, or harnessing the potential of ICT-based learning and teaching.

Between 2014 and 2020, we propose to invest more than 19 billion Euros in Erasmus for All - a substantial increase from the current period - in order to reflect the crucial importance of education for growth, jobs and innovation.

We want to build a Europe-wide supportive policy environment, because in this way the EU can leverage national efforts and both inspire and support the modernisation of education and training systems.

I am pleased to say that the preparation of Erasmus for All and Opening up Education has involved several European Commission services as well as stakeholders, like EADTU, and I am grateful for their input.

Before I conclude, I would like to share a final thought with you.

Soon the level of worldwide demand for higher education degrees will largely exceed the capacity of the existing systems to deliver - and it will not be economically viable to continue to build new universities.

This growing and unsatisfied demand proves that the concept of an Open Education university is quickly becoming a real need.

So I invite all of you to take full advantage of this conference to deepen the reflection on the role of open and flexible education to provide the skills, knowledge and competences that Europe needs. I am fully confident that your contributions will be a source of inspiration for our future proposals, and will help Europe remain innovative and competitive.

Thank you.