10, 100, 1000, 17.000: a great Education Festival!
A few months ago, on the 13th of May, around 500 school students together with 500 politicians and representatives of important stakeholders working on educational matters, gathered in the Flemish parliament in Brussels, Belgium for the “Education Festival”. This significant event was the end of a long and successful process, which saw Vlaamse Scholierenkoepel (VSK) being at the forefront for several months.
For over 25 years, we, the Flemish school students, have been following and studying the same curriculum, which was neither relevant nor challenging anymore for us and society as a whole. We, as the representatives of the Flemish school students, wanted to make the curriculum as relevant as possible; we wanted to learn new subjects like citizenship, first aid, housekeeping and finances.
The entire process started in January 2016, when a group of ten “ambassadors” called De 10 (The 10) was established. This group was made of students with different background and opinions about education and its implication. In February, on the Day of the 100, at the Flemish parliament we gathered around 100 delegates from 50 different school student councils. The purpose of this particular event was to train the participants on how to involve their peers in the debate on the revision of the curriculum, based on questions like “what subject do they miss in their educational path?” and “what subjects are unnecessary?”.
At the same time, we established an online platform where students and citizens had the chance to share their opinions and discuss this important topic. Furthermore, education professionals together with citizens and students took part in the so called Five Education Nights: an event which saw over 17000 people from all over Flanders, exchanging ideas and sharing thoughts about new and innovative curriculum possibilities. The outcomes of these online discussions were shared with the members of the parliament during the Education Festival.
No one will ever forget that day in May when the parliament turned into festival area, with tons of activities such as readings, speeches, American debates, different games, speed dating with politicians and much more.
The entire project was a huge success and we would like to thank everyone who was involved and made it possible. Have a look at this very nice video and check out all the pictures on our Facebook page.
For any questions or more details about the project you can contact Rania el Mard at rania@scholierenkoepel.be.
Written by Renia el Mard, VSK International Officer
