Socrates gets second life

Thousands of schools have European partnerships

The "Socrates" project, the biggest educational partnership scheme in the European Union, is to be relaunched - with a new emphasis on employment skills.

Education Minister Baroness Blackstone said that "Socrates II", which is to run for seven years, would help to encourage skills that would be useful in the "global marketplace".

The first phase of the Socrates project, launched by the European Commission five years ago, has supported tens of thousands of educational links between schools and universities within the European Union and a number of central and eastern European countries.

In the United Kingdom, under the Socrates scheme, more than 2,000 schools have set up exchanges with schools overseas and 10,000 university students have spent time in European universities.

'Employability'

The re-launched Socrates scheme, with £140m funding for the United Kingdom, will support projects which "enhance employability" and lifelong learning - as well as continuing to support exchange schemes.

Socrates II also promises to support the use of new technology in adult education, with grants available to promote joint projects within participating countries.

Among the other objectives of the project will be to widen access to education, strengthen the "European dimension" of education, promote the learning of European languages and to develop European educational resources.

Speaking at the launch, Baroness Blackstone, said that Socrates "can make a significant contribution to the issues that are at the heart of our concerns today: improving standards, broadening horizons, increasing understanding and awareness and enhancing employability in the global marketplace".