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Study of the impact of Comenius assistantships

Full report - Study

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The improvement of education and training, as critical factors for the development of the EU's long-term potential for global competitiveness as well as for social cohesion, is high on the agenda of the European Commission and the European Council. Whilst member states are responsible for the organisation and content of education and training systems, it is the role of the European Union to support them through the implementation of Community programmes. The Lifelong Learning Programme, the Action Programme of the European Communities in the field of education, was decided on by the Council... and the European Parliament (Council Decision 1720/2006/EC) in November 2006 for a phase of seven years (from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2013). The LLP consists of four sectoral programmes, one transversal programme, and the Jean Monnet programme. One of the sectoral programmes, the Comenius programme, is intended to "address the teaching and learning needs of all those in pre-school and school education up to the level of the end of upper secondary education, and the institutions and organisations providing such education". The Comenius programme is composed of a variety of actions providing support for school partnerships, online professional development and cooperation activities, inservice training of staff employed in the education sector, assistantships for future teachers, multilateral projects and networks. After the examination of the impact of Comenius School Partnerships in 2008 and the impact of Comenius In-service Training in 2009, the European Commission launched a further study in autumn 2009 to shed light on the outcomes and impacts of Comenius Assistantships. The promotion of assistantships for future (language) teachers is not a new action which was firstly introduced with the implementation of the LLP. Already during the first phase of the Socrates programme (1995-1999), assistantships were supported within the LINGUA programme (Action C). With the restructuring of programmes in the second phase of the Socrates programme (2000-2006) the LINGUA Assistantships became part of the Comenius programme and were supported under Action 2.2.b as Comenius Language Assistantships. Since the implementation of the LLP, the sole focus on language teachers was abandoned and the current title for the action is Comenius Assistantships.