F. whereas the Member States have a public responsibility to draft education and training policies, and whereas these spheres require adequate public funding in order to guarantee equal access to education without social, economic, cultural, racial or political discrimination;

F. whereas the Member States have a public responsibility to draft education and training policies, and whereas these spheres require adequate public funding in order to guarantee equal access to education without social, economic, cultural, racial or political discrimination;

coherence and complementarity should be further promoted between education and training policies and social and labour policies, to make lifelong learning a reality;

5. Continual consideration of which of the jointly developed educational indicators require further development in the OECD framework for the pursuit of education-policy assignments in Member States and at European Union level; development of additional educational indicators specific to the EU, which are required with a view to achieving the objectives of the EU Treaty, e.g. the promotion of mobility and research into regional disparities.

The communication aims to lay the foundations for a prospective initiative on education and training policy intended to implement the guidelines set out in the White Paper, in view of the objectives of growth, competitiveness and employment, without prejudice to the fundamental role of education in preparing for citizenship and integration into a working life.

In order to do so, that organization established eight key elements for successful ECEC policy: a systemic and integrated approach to policy development and implementation; a strong and equal partnership with the education system; a universal approach to access, with particular attention to children in need of special support; substantial public investment in services in the infrastructure; a participatory approach to quality improvement and assurance; appropriate training and working conditions for staff in all forms of provision; systematic attention to monitoring and data collection; and finally, a stable framework for a long-t ...[+++]erm agenda of research and evaluation.