Keen to capitalise on a more systemic approach to entrepreneurship promotion in education, the governments of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood have signed up to the Small Business Act for Europe and to systematic reviews of their education and training systems.

At a launch meeting in Turin on 28-29 March, high-level representatives of economy and education ministries from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine will consider a set of indicators to be used in the assessment process. At the same time national experts will follow a training programme on the application of these indicators.

The indicators and assessment form part of a policy review mechanism led by the EU’s pre-accession region in recent years and later adopted by the EU’s southern Mediterranean partners.

‘We are pleased to welcome our eastern neighbours to the policy assessment process,’ says ETF Director, Madlen Serban. ‘The value of regular review of education and training, combined with an common agreed set of policy targets, is that you know where you are and you know what you need to improve,’ says Ms Serban.

The launch meeting this week in Turin will be followed by a marathon of meetings, focus group discussions and evidence-based policy research by ETF team in May and June. The outcomes of the human capital assessments for each country will be merged with the wider enterprise policy country-based reviews involving the European Commission, OECD and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Completion of the reviews is scheduled for late autumn 2011.

For more information contact ETF’s Olena Bekh at Olena.Bekh@etf.europa.eu