Investment in education is crucial for improving labour productivity, professional development and economic growth. With this in mind, the European Social Fund has contributed nearly €34 billion to supporting education measures between 2014 and 2020. Education has been a recurring theme in many of our reports across the areas of employment and social policy.

As the EU’s auditors, we also look ahead in order to help address the key challenges facing the EU in future. We anticipate a number of trends transforming education as we know it. Digital literacy will be even more essential than it already is, and the educational sector will therefore have to rethink its curriculums. The problem of inadequate technical skills in older generations could be compounded by an educational system that does not adequately address the needs of our changing modern society.

We will keep all these factors in mind when selecting our audit tasks and formulating recommendations for the future.