MAASTRICHT (AA) - Turkish National Education Minister Huseyin Celik signed Maastricht Declaration which was published after EU Education Ministers' Meeting on vocational training in the Netherlands on Wednesday.
Maastricht Declaration sets new activities to reach targets of Lisbon Strategy that was signed in 2000 regarding vocational training in EU member countries. The declaration was signed by EU member and candidate countries, and Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
Celik told reporters, ''the EU believes there is insufficiency about vocational training. Thus, this declaration was signed to eliminate the insufficiency.''
''Especially number of unskilled people is increasing in Europe each day. The EU insists on solving this problem,'' he added.
Celik stated, ''Turkey is already aware of this issue. We have also serious action plans on adaptation of technical training to market conditions, training of people in line with market demand and prevention of unemployment. There are two big projects in Turkey on support to vocational training and modernization of vocational training.''
Celik will return to Turkey on Thursday.
(GC-MS)
2004-12-15