EUROPEAN DIMENSION OF EDUCATION IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALIZATION AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

Globalization is the event of the contemporaneity. It is the passport that makes it possible to open the doors of any structure of the society, by creating the global virtual space, which complements the physical one. Becoming immediately a catchword, a magical incantation for deciphering all the mysteries, present and coming ones, the word 'globalization' itself is all in the air, defined mostly by ubiquity rather than accuracy. In accordance with the actual tendencies to highlight the role that education plays in the socio-economic development of nowadays world, the purpose of the present scientific study is to propose an analysis of the human capital in the context of globalization, from a representative approach. In this paper, a benchmarking of the EU countries is presented. For this study, we exploited the following research means: the investigation of secondary data and content analysis of the primary reports and studies of international organizations, such as World Bank-Human Development Reports, World Economic Forum, Eurostat statistics as well as EU reports on human capital, education and competitiveness. For data analysis I applied procedures and statistical correlations of analysis. In order to bring forward the impact that education has on the economic competitiveness of a country, in this section we will focus on three important indicators: Global Competitiveness Indicator (GCI), European Indicator of Human Capital (EIHC) and European Lifelong Learning Indicator (ELLI). This study follows the analysis of correlations regarding GCI and ELLI. Education (as a defining factor of human capital) has direct effects on the competitiveness of a region/country (the correlation between EIHC and IGC). The selection of the countries for which I analyzed the indicators was based on eligible criteria, considering the particularities of each state, from geographical and cultural views. At the same time, these countries have successful educational systems as well as remarkable educational performances.