[{"bbox": [83, 105, 1147, 160], "category": "Text", "text": "and overall resilience. Entrepreneurial and innovation skills should be fostered throughout the education cycles to support Greenland in reinforcing its socio-economic fabric and capitalising on its developmental potential."}, {"bbox": [83, 184, 1147, 319], "category": "Text", "text": "The envisaged action will give a new boost to strengthen current efforts and effectively implement needed education reforms, including promotion of inclusive education of learners with disabilities. As outlined in the GEP II (Uddannelsesplan II), the attainment of a higher education level in the Greenland population is key to boosting Greenland's competitiveness, diversify its economy and forming the basis for the sustainable development that will meet the future demographic and structural challenges."}, {"bbox": [83, 344, 1147, 423], "category": "Text", "text": "The focus of the action is threefold: (i) better spending for higher impact, (ii) improved services (teacher, IT, accessibility, social guidance, entrepreneurial and innovation skills) and (iii) work at and through local level as a driver for accelerated and sustainable reform:"}, {"bbox": [83, 450, 1147, 558], "category": "Text", "text": "(i) While important progress has been achieved, the system is still underperforming also considering the funds mobilised per student. Funds that have been invested in education infrastructure have not yet yielded their full potential. Therefore, rigour in reform implementation needs to increase and spending to become more focused. The proposed action will support these efforts."}, {"bbox": [83, 557, 1147, 664], "category": "Text", "text": "Moreover, while the percentage of 16-18-year-olds outside education is decreasing (from 60.1% in 2017 to 57.4% in 2018), the number is still far too high and this also has a significant impact on the education budget. This action will tackle the bottleneck of transitioning from elementary school to high school or vocational education and offer perspectives to young people finishing training or education, such as in entrepreneurship."}, {"bbox": [83, 688, 1147, 823], "category": "Text", "text": "(ii) Problems in the sector are compounded by a relatively low quality of teaching (especially in primary and lower secondary education) particularly in more remote settlements and as for qualification to teach learners with disabilities. To tackle this issue, the action aims at increasing the number of qualified teachers through a review of teacher education and working conditions, and at supporting the application of distance learning and pedagogical IT, an area with significant potential in Greenland."}, {"bbox": [83, 847, 1147, 982], "category": "Text", "text": "(iii) A major innovation of the envisaged action will be an enhanced focus on the local level, as responsibility for providing education lies primarily with the municipalities. The action will seek to improve municipal capacities, standardisation, inspection, oversight and the coordination among municipalities and between the different levels. Moreover this action will support wellbeing in the educational system through enhanced social counselling/guidance and stimulate entrepreneurial skills as an interface to lifelong learning."}, {"bbox": [109, 1025, 349, 1057], "category": "Section-header", "text": "## 2.2. Problem Analysis"}, {"bbox": [83, 1095, 1147, 1257], "category": "Text", "text": "This action will increase the collective welfare and resilience by removing present bottlenecks in terms of skills provision that are preventing the development and diversification of the Greenlandic economy, creating a stable fiscal base and attracting new industries. It builds on previous EU-Greenlandic cooperation in this area. As the current education support programme came to an end in early 2021, follow-up through a successor programme will allow consolidation of the achieved reform gains while also broadening to address additional issues (social counselling, coordination with the municipal level, entrepreneurial and innovation skills)."}, {"bbox": [83, 1281, 1147, 1496], "category": "Text", "text": "Greenland is the world's biggest island but is very sparsely populated with some 56.500 inhabitants distributed on 5 major towns and app. 60 smaller settlements. The economy is based mainly on fishery, which makes it vulnerable to fluctuations in prices in world market prices, whereas other sectors – notably the exploitation of mineral resources as well as arctic tourism – still only contribute a minor part of the GDP. However, the sources of revenue are not sufficient to balance the state budget, and therefore Greenland significantly relies on an annual block grant from Denmark as a major contribution to its economy (see below in section 2.3.3) and on EU support. Denmark also covers the costs of the judiciary system (including policing) as well as a number of other activities (territorial defence, geographical surveying etc.)."}, {"bbox": [83, 1520, 1147, 1653], "category": "Text", "text": "In the efforts to develop a more robust, diversified and sustainable economy, the GoG is investing heavily in education and training, as a well-educated workforce is a prerequisite for economic progress. For many years, education and training has accounted for over 25% of the state budget, which is one of the highest levels in the world. However, Greenland's existing workforce is characterised by a low level of education, where a substantial amount – over 60% – of persons in the age bracket 16-74 only possess qualifications from lower secondary education or less. This"}, {"bbox": [1051, 1663, 1157, 1687], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 5 of 35"}]