Rethinking EU‐level goals: different strategies to improve national performance toward the European Education Area objectives

The European Education Area strategic framework is the outcome of the continuous construction of European cooperation in education. It sets EU‐level goals for seven indicators, which should be achieved within a given timeframe. Previous researchers have shown that the national capacity of some countries to implement measurement standards can lag behind the ambition of EU‐level goals. This paper aims to propose a benchmarking approach to set country‐specific targets and identify different strategies for improving national performance toward strategic objectives. We proposed a benefit‐of‐doubt approach that incorporates information on EU‐level goals and employed it with the most recent data for 29 European countries. The model solves a bi‐objective problem that imposes two objectives of closeness, namely that between actual performances and targets (effort) and that between targets and EU‐level goals (adjustment). Managers involved in planning may choose the most appropriate plan based on targets common to all countries or others that consider individual circumstances.