§ Mr. PawseyTo ask the Secretary of State for Education what was the outcome of the recent meeting of the Council of EC Ministers of Education.
§ Mr. PattenI chaired the meeting on Friday 27 November of the Council of EC Education Ministers. The Under-Secretary of State for Further and Higher Education and the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland represented the United Kingdom.
After two and a half years of negotiation, the Ministers reached agreement on the terms of the new statute of the European schools. The effect of this will be to improve the efficiency of operation of the board of governors of these nine schools, which were established for the children of the staff of the EC institutions.
The Ministers also agreed that there should be a second four-year phase of the TEMPUS programme and exchanged views on its key features. TEMPUS is a programme of EC assistance to the countries of central and eastern Europe through co-operation in higher education. The first phase expires after the academic year 1993–94 and it should now be possible for the Council formally to adopt the second phase early next year.
477WThe Ministers adopted conclusions on and discussed the future directions of co-operation at Community level in higher education and in open and distance learning. They adopted conclusions on EC-United States cooperation in education and training, health education in schools and the Eurydice network of information exchange in education.