| European Cooperation on School
Education Socrates
is the European programme for education. Its aim is to promote the European dimension and
to improve the quality of education by encouraging cooperation between the participating
countries.
The programme sets out to develop a Europe of knowledge and thus better cater for the
major challenges of this new century: to promote lifelong learning, to encourage access by
everybody to education, to acquire qualifications and recognised skills.
The first phase of the Socrates programme was for five years (1995-1999). The programme
has been renewed and the second phase will run for seven years (2000-2006). Socrates has a
budget of 1 850 € million for the seven-year period.
Socrates consists of eight actions:
1. Comenius : school education
2. Erasmus : higher education
3. Grundtvig : adult education and other education pathways
4. Lingua : learning and teaching of European languages
5. Minerva : information and communication technologies in education
6. Observation and innovation of education systems and policies
7. Joint actions with other European programmes
8. Accompanying measures.
Source : http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/programmes/programmes_en.html |