Working Dinner “Europe, SMEs, Youth and the future of E-learning”

SME Europe of the EPP has organized, in cooperation with European Democrat Students (EDS) and the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP), a Working Dinner on “Europe, SME’s, Youth and the future of E-learning”, on November 6^th in the European Parliament.

The event was moderated by Florian Weinberger, vice-chairman of EDS.

Dr. Paul Rübig MEP, SME Europe Honorary President, mentionned in his welcome note that the European Parliament realizes its mission of promoting the education and making it adaptable for the development of high-technology. He underlined that the young generation has a lot of new opportunities of learning, as well as capacity to take advantage of these opportunities.

Eva Majewski, Chairwoman of EDS and Co-President of SME Future noted in her speech that the web rises borders between formal and informal learning. Both are very important and should be appreciated by entrepreneurs. She stressed the importance of cooperation between universities and private sector. Ms. Majevski called the young generation to monitor global entrepreneurship and evaluate the opportunities of learning and business, to mobilize all the efforts for creating an entrepreneural friendly society.

The debate was followed up by Ana Carla Pereira, Head of Unit “Skills and qualifications strategies/Multilingualism policy” at the European Commission, who presented on Opening Up Education. Starting with explaining new trends in the educational sector brought by the digital revolution, she stressed the importance of the adaptability for this changes. According to her, Europeans should use the digital revolution as an opportunity. Ms Pereira explained the actions taken by the European Union aimed to improve the open learning environment and to provide open educational resources. Her statement has been followed by an o pen debate.

Konstantinos Kyranakis, President of YEPP and Co-President of SME Future, emphasized the challenges of the educational system. He stated his position against the multiplication of free online courses. He spoke in favour of lowering of the cost of life, so that people could pay important money for the education which is, for him, a choice of life.

The Working Dinner finished with a questions, answers and remarks session

Gallery “Europe, SMEs, Youth and the future of E-learning”

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