The Committee on Women’s Rights and
Gender Equality adopted an initiative the report by Marie PANAYOTOPOULOS-CASSIOTOU
(EPP-ED, EL) on a regulatory framework for measures enabling young women in
the European Union to combine family life with a period of studies. In doing
so, it points out that education and training for girls and women is a human
right and an essential element of the full enjoyment of all other social,
economic, cultural and political rights.
In education and research, women
outnumber men as graduates (59%), yet their presence decreases consistently
as they progress up the career ladder, from 43% of PhD candidates down to
only 15% of professors. Bearing this in mind, the committee encourages the
Commission and the Member States to promote policies which make it easier to
combine studying, training and family life, which support the balanced
assumption of family responsibilities by young people without any form
of discrimination.
Amongst other recommendations, the
Parliamentary committee invites the Member States to:
- to be more aware of the situation of
young men and women who have family responsibilities in addition to
being in education or training, and particularly to make resources
available to them that suit to their needs;
- to set up social services to promote
for promoting personal independence and to provide care for people who
are dependent upon others;
- to offer affordable 'student
insurance', and in particular social and medical cover, which could be
extended to the student's dependents;
- to simplify and facilitate the
provision of loans on beneficial terms to young men and women who are
combining family responsibilities with a period of study or training;
- to reduce or put an end to the taxation
of young men and women who both study and work and who have family
responsibilities or responsibilities towards dependants;
- to adopt, in partnership with local authorities
and higher education and vocational training institutions, the necessary
measures to enable students who are also parents to live in housing that
is suited to their needs and to have access to sufficient and adequate
childcare under the same eligibility criteria as working parents; calls
on the Member States to make full use of the possibilities provided by
Community funds and in particular the ESF in this area;
- to ensure that all students with
children have access to, and can afford to use, quality local
authority/State nursery schools;
- to ensure that all students with older
children have access to and can afford to use qualitative after-school
facilities;
- to relieve young people, particularly
women, of the main responsibility for caring for dependents so that
those women have the opportunity to study;
- in association with higher education
and vocational training establishments, to propose more flexible ways of
organising study courses, for example by increasing the provision of
distance learning and the possibilities for part-time study;
The higher education and vocational
training establishments are encouraged to:
- to ensure that pregnant students and
mothers of young children enjoy equal treatment and non-discrimination
in terms of access to, the continuation of and the return to education,
and to take particular account of their needs;
- to make more use of flexible learning
techniques enabled by new technology and to make these available to all young
people in education or training, particularly those with family
responsibilities and persons with disabilities;
- to set up childcare services on their
premises and calls on the Member States to support initiatives of this
kind;
- to make their teaching and other staff
aware of the particular needs of students with responsibility for
others, and if necessary to set up support and advisory services to make
it easy for them to start, continue or return to a course of higher
education or vocational training;
- to take account of the financial
situation of young men and women who have family responsibilities when
calculating course fees, and encourages them to provide appropriate
assistance.
The committee calls on the Member States, the Council and the Commission, in the Open
Coordination Method and meetings of education ministers and social services
ministers, that they exchange best practice with regard to support for
students with family responsibilities and to take account of innovative
arrangements in this area which some European countries have introduced.
Lastly, it calls on the Member States to continue to seek to expand and promote professional training for persons with
family responsibilities and those from marginalised or minority groups, so as
to enable them to avoid long-term unemployment and to ensure that they have
equal access to the labour market.