Page 34 - Štremfel, Urška, ed., 2016. Student (Under)achievement: Perspectives, Approaches, Challenges. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut. Digital Library, Documenta 11.
P. 34
not willing to acknowledge the political power of the EU and its impact in a
field that is of key importance for the national identity and culture of individ-
ual member states. A turning point, in relation to the reinforcement of coop-
eration, is the Lisbon Strategy, in accordance with which education is, for the
first time, recognised as a prerequisite to improving the efficiency of the EU.
Due to the nature of education as a policy field over which member states en-
deavour to maintain sovereignty, and due to a simultaneous awareness of the
significance of education for achieving strategic goals of the EU – for which it
was first assumed they would be impossible to achieve through inconsistent
national educational systems - the open method of coordination (OMC) was
defined as a new mode of governance by means of the Lisbon Strategy. This
method is based on the mechanisms of the so-called soft law, which means
that the jurisdictions of the EU are limited to fostering cooperation between
member states. Through its declarative purpose, OMC is a mean of achieving
greater convergence in pursuing common European objectives and estab-
lishes a common European educational space, wherein the previously heter-
ogeneous educational systems have been united in a unified core of lifelong
34 learning (Hingel, 2001; Nòvoa and Lawn, 2002; Alexiadou, 2007; Pépin, 7; Walk-
enhorst, 2008).
Although cooperation between member states in the field of education
is non-mandatory, the OMC instruments contain a number of levers that steer
member states towards acting in the direction that has been agreed upon.
If member states fail to achieve the agreed objectives, informal pressure is
(can be) exerted on them by the EU through the instruments of the aforemen-
tioned soft law. Understandably, the response to this pressure is not the same
in all member states, and is, on account of the absence of any legally binding
norms, all the more dependent on their institutional structures, political cul-
ture, relationships between the actors involved and, last but not least, on the
results that member states achieve in pursuing the jointly agreed EU objec-
tives (Borrás and Radaelli, 2011; Alexiadou and Lange, 2013).
Common European cooperation in the field of education within the OMC,
and its impact on the educational space of Slovenia, is described at the begin-
ning of the paper through theoretical premises of the new mode of govern-
ance. In the second part, special attention is devoted to Slovenia’s involvement
in the pursuit of the European benchmark which addresses the issues concern-
ing adolescents’ academic underachievement most directly, i.e. a reduction in
the percentage of students who fail to reach the basic level of literacy in PISA
(Council of the European Union, 2009). The paper is concluded with delibera-
tions in relation to following the European objectives within the Slovenian ed-
ucational space to date. Moreover, some recommendations are given based
on which the advantages of common European cooperation could, in the au-
thor’s opinion, be utilised to an even greater extent. However, specific national
student (under)achievement: perspectives, approaches, challenges
field that is of key importance for the national identity and culture of individ-
ual member states. A turning point, in relation to the reinforcement of coop-
eration, is the Lisbon Strategy, in accordance with which education is, for the
first time, recognised as a prerequisite to improving the efficiency of the EU.
Due to the nature of education as a policy field over which member states en-
deavour to maintain sovereignty, and due to a simultaneous awareness of the
significance of education for achieving strategic goals of the EU – for which it
was first assumed they would be impossible to achieve through inconsistent
national educational systems - the open method of coordination (OMC) was
defined as a new mode of governance by means of the Lisbon Strategy. This
method is based on the mechanisms of the so-called soft law, which means
that the jurisdictions of the EU are limited to fostering cooperation between
member states. Through its declarative purpose, OMC is a mean of achieving
greater convergence in pursuing common European objectives and estab-
lishes a common European educational space, wherein the previously heter-
ogeneous educational systems have been united in a unified core of lifelong
34 learning (Hingel, 2001; Nòvoa and Lawn, 2002; Alexiadou, 2007; Pépin, 7; Walk-
enhorst, 2008).
Although cooperation between member states in the field of education
is non-mandatory, the OMC instruments contain a number of levers that steer
member states towards acting in the direction that has been agreed upon.
If member states fail to achieve the agreed objectives, informal pressure is
(can be) exerted on them by the EU through the instruments of the aforemen-
tioned soft law. Understandably, the response to this pressure is not the same
in all member states, and is, on account of the absence of any legally binding
norms, all the more dependent on their institutional structures, political cul-
ture, relationships between the actors involved and, last but not least, on the
results that member states achieve in pursuing the jointly agreed EU objec-
tives (Borrás and Radaelli, 2011; Alexiadou and Lange, 2013).
Common European cooperation in the field of education within the OMC,
and its impact on the educational space of Slovenia, is described at the begin-
ning of the paper through theoretical premises of the new mode of govern-
ance. In the second part, special attention is devoted to Slovenia’s involvement
in the pursuit of the European benchmark which addresses the issues concern-
ing adolescents’ academic underachievement most directly, i.e. a reduction in
the percentage of students who fail to reach the basic level of literacy in PISA
(Council of the European Union, 2009). The paper is concluded with delibera-
tions in relation to following the European objectives within the Slovenian ed-
ucational space to date. Moreover, some recommendations are given based
on which the advantages of common European cooperation could, in the au-
thor’s opinion, be utilised to an even greater extent. However, specific national
student (under)achievement: perspectives, approaches, challenges
