Page 117 - Štremfel, Urška, and Maša Vidmar (eds.). 2018. Early School Leaving: Contemporary European Perspectives. Ljubljana: Pedagoški inštitut.
P. 117
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ESL in the EU: Learning from Differences
and Common Trends
Urška Štremfel
Synopsis
The differences in policies and practices for addressing ESL in the
EU should be seen as creating a lucky situation since through the
process of policy learning they enable various unique solutions to be
found to the ESL problem. Despite the well-established architecture
for policy learning, the vertical transfer of knowledge between the
various levels of multi-level governance remains a challenge.
Summary
EU cooperation in the area of education is non-binding and works
on a voluntary basis. This means there is no single (formal) policy
on ESL (e.g. Alexiadou, 2007). Consequently, very unique ways for
achieving the shared goal (of reducing the average EU rate of ESLers
to below 10% by 2020) are being developed at the member-state lev-
el (taking their institutional and cultural background into account
etc.). According to policy learning theory (e.g. Radaelli, 2003), these
differences should be regarded as fortuitous because they enable
(good) practices to be shared, thereby increasing the likelihood of
finding characteristics that are common in different national/re-
gional/local/institutional specific solutions. An important approach
to identifying such (good) practices entails the policy experimenta-
tions conducted within the TITA project. This paper systematically
117
ESL in the EU: Learning from Differences
and Common Trends
Urška Štremfel
Synopsis
The differences in policies and practices for addressing ESL in the
EU should be seen as creating a lucky situation since through the
process of policy learning they enable various unique solutions to be
found to the ESL problem. Despite the well-established architecture
for policy learning, the vertical transfer of knowledge between the
various levels of multi-level governance remains a challenge.
Summary
EU cooperation in the area of education is non-binding and works
on a voluntary basis. This means there is no single (formal) policy
on ESL (e.g. Alexiadou, 2007). Consequently, very unique ways for
achieving the shared goal (of reducing the average EU rate of ESLers
to below 10% by 2020) are being developed at the member-state lev-
el (taking their institutional and cultural background into account
etc.). According to policy learning theory (e.g. Radaelli, 2003), these
differences should be regarded as fortuitous because they enable
(good) practices to be shared, thereby increasing the likelihood of
finding characteristics that are common in different national/re-
gional/local/institutional specific solutions. An important approach
to identifying such (good) practices entails the policy experimenta-
tions conducted within the TITA project. This paper systematically
117
