The good School – the journey from good to excellent
Leonardo da Vinci – Transfer of Innovation
2007 – 2009

Background
In all member states the quality of education and training is considered to be a concern of the highest political priority. High levels of knowledge, competencies and skills are considered to be the very basic conditions for active citizenship, employment and social cohesion.
Lifelong learning is an important means of shaping one’s future on a professional and personal level, and high-quality education is essential in the light of labour market policies, and the free movement of workers within the European Union.
The role of European training and education in both the societal and economic development implies that education has to be treated in economic terms as an investment. In these perspectives, education has an impact on all sectors and it also complements personal development and its cultural dimension.
The need to prepare citizens to live and work in knowledge based society, i.e. the learning society, calls for lifelong learning as a strategy, ensuring learning opportunities for different target groups. This strategy implies that VET training institutions must be prepared to serve different groups (all ages, all levels of education and training, etc.) and to associate themselves with other actors (training centres, enterprises, local authorities, associations’ networks, etc).
However many VET projects focus on the wrong variables in their efforts to develop quality. The typical focus on teaching and learning is necessary, but it is also an insufficient condition for real improvement. Projects which deals with principles of best practice related to teaching and learning have difficulty taking root in the European VET training institutions essentially for two reasons: They require content knowledge and pedagogical skills that few teachers have, and they challenge certain basic patterns in the organisation. Neither problem can be solved independently of the other.