European Commissioner Roxana Mînzatu says education needs "a serious overhaul"

"If education is the foundation of our future, then our foundation is in need of a serious overhaul", said Roxana Mînzatu, Executive Vice-President for Social Rights and Skills, Quality Jobs and Preparedness of the European Commission, on 13/11/2025.

Speaking at the opening of the 2025 European Education and Skills Summit in Brussels, she listed three "fractures" the European education system was facing:

• the decline in basic skills: young Europeans now perform worse, not only than previous generations, but also than their peers in countries like the US, Canada or Japan;
• the growing shortage of teachers;
• "what we teach and what we need are out of sync": "when 80 % of businesses say they can’t find the skills they need, something is clearly not working".

Published the same day, the European Commission's 2025 Education and Training Monitor showed that there was a need to increase enrolment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects in light of the shortage of professionals.

For Minaztu, expanding STEM or mastering AI could happen only with "strong fundamentals"…