5. Competencies for employment 

It is recommended that work towards the further development of Speech and Language Therapy as a recognised academic discipline should continue. It is important to recognise its multidisciplinary links and to encourage theoretical developments and research in both the art of clinical practice and the science of intervention. (CD  1)
It is recommended that courses in phonetics should be an essential element in SLT education, and that they should incorporate a direct clinical focus. A thorough understanding of speech production is seen as a prerequisite for good practice in SLT. (CD 2)
An expansion of the role of methods and tools of SLE in education and in clinical practice is recommended, even if SLT educators are unfamiliar with SLE and somewhat sceptical about the its importance. Development of deeper knowledge of SLE, and collaboration between SLE and SLT should be considered at Master's degree level. (CD 3)
Collaboration between those working in CAL and in SLT for production of materials is strongly recommened. The use of CAL offers exciting possibilities and is viewed positively overall, but its exploitation in SLT education needs care and selectivity. (CD 4)
It is recommended that the use of the internet for education in various areas of SLT should be facilitated for the benefit of clinicians, students and teachers. The need for observance of professional ethics must be emphasised. (CD 5)
It is recommended that teaching and learning strategies that facilitate the application of theory to therapy should be developed and exploited, and that the development of the professional skills that lead to the generation of reflective practitioners should be facilitated. Incorporating pre-clinical subjects (anatomy, physiology, linguistics, phonetics etc) in the new pedagogical methods used in SLT education would have major advantages for student therapists. (CD 6)
It is recommended that the use of Internet as a part of study programmes in SLT (as in Recommendations 4 and 5 above) is implemented initially on an experimental level, with its effectiveness to be fully evaluated over time. (CD 9)
It is recommended that exploitation of the Internet/WWW should be used to facilitate the application of theory to practice, and to help bridge the gap between research and clinical teaching in SLT. (CD 10)
It is recommended that a standard approach to the use of IPA phonetic conventions for transcribing normal and disordered speech should be adopted across Europe and that this should be a core component of educational courses. Further consideration might be given to the definition of minimum standards in phonetics which could be recognised across Europe for all students of S&LT. (CD 11)

Old barriers between the humanities and science/engineering must be lowered. (CL 8)
The summer schools and courses organized by ELSNET, FOLLI and others need to continue. (CL 13)
We recommend that reforms in CL education not be limited to the level of higher education. It is necessary to initiate wide preparatory measures at other levels of education. Awareness raising and competence raising measures in secondary education can for instance take the form of job orientation with respect to the language industries and the integration of NLP tools in grammar teaching and foreign language teaching. (CL 22)

We recommend that traineeship (internship) should be part of NEL students' curricula. (NEL 6)
We recommend that academia take industrial needs of recruitment into account (with consequences for curricula, job profiles and life-long learning).  (NEL 7)
We recommend that the need of students for inexpensive learning environments, including hardware (e.g. multilingual keyboards) and software, be acknowledged  (NEL 9)
We recommend international funding schemes for creating NEL teaching and learning materials, such as handbooks, CD-ROMs, Web materials, ODL broadcast, multifunctional model and practice corpora, etc., in close cooperation between the EU and non-European countries, ensuring that all prospective users of the products are considered  (NEL 10)
We recommend the creation of an international forum dedicated to NEL computing, where teachers and students can meet and exchange information, experiences, etc. (NEL 11)
We recommend awareness actions to make students and prospective students aware of the offers in NEL (in particular new job profiles) including computer applications in NEL. Those awareness actions could be carried out through Web dissemination, associations, contacts with the media, local student advisers, etc. The target groups to be informed are both secondary school and university students.  (NEL 13)

Lifelong learning needs to take place. resources (PHON 5)
Old barriers between the humanities and science/engineering must be lowered. (PHON 6)

To improve and to strength the links between industry (research and development laboratories) and universities in the area of SLE. (SLE 2)
The definition of a coherent system for acquisition of competencies and skills through dedicated training models addressed to various job profiles and to expected changes in the SLE market. (SLE 3)
Continuous interdisciplinary professional development for teaching staff in speech technology in the context of life long learning and modern teaching methodologies. (SLE 6)
For universities in Central and Eastern Europe it is imperative to strength the links with similar institutions from EU in order to set up new curricula, to retrain the staff and to develop the educational and research infrastructure according to well recognized standards. (SLE 8)
More phonetics and computational linguistics in technical university education could better prepare students for the professional jobs in SLE (SLE 13)