The document shows that no two countries are identical. However, they are subject to common trends such as the expansion of pre-schooling and higher education, and the introduction of compulsory foreign language teaching. Nationalists will, however, be less pleased to find England and Wales near the bottom of several league tables.

Key Data in the European Union 94 provides graphic evidence that education systems are largely products of history and political will. Its maps of pre-school attendance show the effect of centralised government andor communism in France, East Germany and Italy. The regions most popular with higher education students have at their heart such old and great universities as Bologna and Rome and the Sorbonne, and the old German and Scottish establishments.

But education systems are not only shaped by history and culture. They are shaped by economic trends too. It is logical that EU education systems should grow closer, subject, like the national economy, to forces for EU-wide convergence and regional polarisation. Civil servants are working on the technicalities of a single currency. But they have also long been considering the mutual recognition of diplomas, vital if the EU is to become a single labour market.

The Key Data maps also show that EU-wide trends feed back into national policies. Britain is still behind many of its European neighbours in terms of nursery education. A majority, including Northern Ireland, provides places for at least 75 per cent of four-year-olds (all figures are for 1991-92). Britain and Germany are in the 50-75 per cent range, Greece and Portugal 25-50 per cent. Nevertheless, John Major is committed to expanding nursery education.

In higher education, Britain - particularly Scotland - is already on the path of convergence. Scotland long ago went its own way with a relatively open HE system which links it more closely to the Continent than the historically elite systems of England and Wales. Scotland falls into the 17-27 per cent range for the percentage of the pupil and student population in HE. Four English regions (the South-west, East Anglia, East Midlands and the North) and Northern Ireland are in the 2-9 per cent range, a figure found only in the poorest part of Greece and East Germany.

The rest of Britain equates with Portugal, the less well-endowed regions of Spain, Sicily and Corsica at 9-12 per cent.

Only in one respect does educational Europe seem polarised - the issue of whether or not to extend the elite grammar-school curriculum. Germany thinks not. It has less than 28 per cent of the age group in the general upper secondary system (grammar schools), the rest are in vocational education or employer-sponsored training. The Latin countries, with the surprising exception of Italy, have at least half in general education.

But EU heads of state have a common interest in striving to improve their education and training systems since they committed themselves in 1993 to Jacques Delors’ strategy outlined in the White Paper on Growth Competition and Employment. Whatever the shape of the national systems Europe’s citizens will have to become highly skilled in the new technologies. The future of the continent depends on it.