Educational accountability and the global knowledge society - What can we learn from the EU experience?

Abstract

The national education systems of the European Union Member States operate in a rather unique framework which sees EU level monitoring and creation of benchmarks in the framework of the Lisbon Agenda interact with national priorities and social characteristics. This paper examines the use of benchmarking in education and training and the presence of different performance levels of groups of countries, using Sapir's European social models classification. There is, in fact, evidence for consistent trends of similar performance within groups and clear distinction of performance levels between groups of countries. This gives indication for the existence of strong structural differences and implies that one-size-fits-all policies do not necessarily respond to the specific characteristics and needs of different countries. © 2009 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.