This publication is a summary of the proceedings of a French Presidency of the EU conference supported by the European Commission's Directorates for Education and for Employment. The conference aimed to identify the challenges, to set out common findings, and to outline measures taken to make lifelong learning more effective. Lifelong learning was seen as at the heart of the flexicurity principle.

As you will see from the proceedings, most of the time was devoted to issues concerning initial and continuing vocational training: access by SMEs, by older, disabled, migrant, unskilled; employer or employee led;  partnerships, motivation; costs and benefits.

The importance of career guidance and counselling was underlined by Heléne Clark, director of the EC's DG for Education, and was also underlined in the French Secretary of State for Employment's discourse on training system reform.

The ministers for VET of the European Union , the European Social Partners and the European Commission met in Bordeaux, France under the French Presidency of the EU in 2008 to review priorities and strategies in European cooperation in VET. The outcome of their discussions is known as the Bordeaux Communique.

The Communique outlines the process of cooperation since 2002, describes the key EU instruments created and their impact on national policies. It sets out a new strategic vision for 2008-2010, especially the challenges of globalisation. The Communique proposes four priority areas for future action:

• national implementation of cooperation instruments and agreements
• improving the quality and attractiveness of VET
• improving links between VET and the labour market
• strengthening European cooperation arrangements.

The Communique makes very explicit the centrality of the provision of career guidance to VET and CVET policies for young people and adults.

It calls for:

• facilitating access to information and lifelong guidance and counselling services through the successful implementation of the 2008 Council Resolution on Lifelong Guidance (which may be found elsewhere on this web site)
• action to be taken to promote guidance systems which help young people and adults to cope better with transitions within education and training and all along their career paths
• improve guidance and counselling services to ease transition from training to employment.

La guida practica è un documento realizzato dalla Commissione Europea e dall'OCSE per rispondere alla continua evoluzione delle politiche dell'instruzione, della formazione e dell'occupazione.

L'obiettivo della guida è di aiutare i decisori dei Paesi dell'OCSE e dell'Unione Europea ad elaborare politiche efficaci di orientamento professionale nel campo dell'instruzione, della formazione e dell'occupazione.

Coordination of policies and the use of resources at national, regional and local levels is a necessary condition for the development of lifelong guidance systems. Countries in Europe are developing many different types of mechanisms to improve such coordination and at different levels. Networks both formal and informal have high potential for solving structural problems. They also play an important role in policy and practice learning. At the end of 2007, a European Lifelong Guidance Network (ELGPN) was established for policy learning purposes.

This publication based on the experience of European level education networks has many lessons in it for policy makers and managers in the field of lifelong guidance at national, regional and local levels. It addresses the following themes:

1. Network theory
2. European networks in education
3. Establishing and setting up a network
4. Managing a network
5. Evaluating a network
6. Making a network sustainable