1. 2016 AES – Draft Commission Regulation implementing Regulation (EC) No 452/2008 Agenda item 2.3
DSS Meeting 3-4 April 2014

2. Background
March 2013: DSS agrees to set up a Task Force to prepare the 2016 Adult Education Survey (AES)
June and December 2013: AES Task Force meetings to prepare the technical elements for 2016 AES
Review of 2011 AES – improvements
New information needs
Data collection period, reference period, data transmission period
List of variables

3. Consultations towards ESSC (1)
January 2014: 1st consultation of the Education and Training Statistics Working Group (ETS WG)
Comments on variables
Concerns on data collection period
Mid-February 2014: 2nd consultation of the ETS WG
Revised data collection period, derogations
Early March: feed-back to ETS WG on changes

4. Consultations towards ESSC (2)
End-February 2014: DSS consultation
23 replies (of 28)
All countries agree on the proposed draft
Minor changes to variables
Confirmation of derogations for data collection period
Summary information sent to DSS on 25/03/2014
Inter-services consultation on-going
Deadline 9/04/2014
Preparation of ESSC documents
Draft Commission Regulation
Draft Commission Implementing Decision (derogations)

5. Data collection period (1)
Discussion at AES TF
Pre-consultation of all AES delegates on reference period and data collection period
Calendar year (2015) would be best methodological solution but requires data collection very early in 2016 – not feasible
General agreement that the data collection period should be reduced to 6 months (AES 2011: 12 months  comparability issues)
Fieldwork period Q1-Q2/2016: some 20 countries indicate that this would be feasible
TF concludes that Q1-Q2/2016 should be proposed as data collection period

6. Data collection period (2)
ETS WG consultation
Several countries express serious concerns on Q1-Q2/2016: workload due to other surveys
5 years distance to 2011 AES to be kept
1 July years = 1 July 2016
Q3-Q4/2016 would require too many derogations
Compromise: Q3/2016 – Q1/2017
Derogations: 5 countries
Data collection period: IE (Q1-Q4/2017), FR, FI (Q1-Q2/2017)
Data transmission period: BE, MT (9 instead of 6 months)

7. Conclusions of consultations
Draft Commission Regulation for 2016 AES
28/28 for
Derogations for 2016 AES
DSS asked to confirm their support to the regulation and the decision and agree to submit them to ESSC in May 2014