A message to the European Commission and the Council of Europe: Education is the only way of beating the crisis!
The Youth Partnership between the Council of Europe and the European Commission invited OBESSU to present our stance on the impacts the financial crisis is having on education and present our manifesto for overcoming the crisis. Our message was strong – only education, but not just any education, is the answer to the crisis!
The Panel was organised as a part of the Symposium: The current crisis and youth – Impact and ways forward where around fifty policy-makers, researchers, youth workers and youth NGOs representatives from all over Europe active in the fields of education, social inclusion and citizenship gathered to discuss what the impact the crisis has on each of these social matters. The current crisis has brought with it rising youth unemployment, widening social exclusion and the increased threat of populist and extremist politics; the Symposium was aiming to identify the ways forward and discuss what role the European youth policy can play in this.
Education vs. the crisis
The Panel on the impact the crisis has on education was opened by our Board member Dejan Bojanic and was followed by interventions from Lucy Pyne (OECD), Soren Kristensen (a researcher) and Rui Gomes (Head of Education and Training, Council of Europe). OBESSU used this opportunity to address the policy makers and other stakeholders in education, to raise awareness on big financial cuts in many European educational systems, and especially to bring forward our stance on the reassessment of education that policy-makers are presenting.
“Education today is perceived as a 21st century Ford’s factory where the objects of mass production are no longer black cars but ready-to-use workers who are obeying the labor market’s demands. More efforts should be dedicated to those skills that learners feel relevant for their development, as well as transversal competences, critical thinking, problem solving and entrepreneurial skills. Furthermore, competences acquired through non-formal education should be incorporated in formal education and recognizing and valuated as learning processes.” OBESSU Stance.
Our stance, significantly different from that of the OECD, was supported by the Head of Education and Training at the Council of Europe and was used as an input from learners in the two upcoming workshops – one on the Contribution of Youth Work and Non-formal Education in overcoming the crisis and the other one on Contribution of Youth Participation in the same process.
One of the statements mentioned at the very opening of the Symposium by Dr. Howard Williamson (University of Glamorgan, UK) was that “Gazing into a crystal ball is a bit dodgy” and it served for us to show how ridiculous it is in 21st century – the fast-changing era of innovation – to assess the skills needed in 10 years in order to train young people to obey these assessments and solely base their development on gaining skills for the “predicted” jobs.
Social exclusion in society – a replica of social exclusion in schools
One of the panels at the Symposium, also followed by two workshops on the same topic, was about the influence the crisis has on social inclusion in Europe.
Interventions from the Council of Europe representatives, a professor from the University of Dundee, the Open Society Foundation’s Roma Policy Researcher and a representative of the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions gave inputs for broad discussions on how can we work to prevent further spreading of social exclusion and extremism in Europe. We must start from our schools: from the teaching methods in classrooms, from the learners’ participation in developing educational agendas, from our textbooks filled with racist, nationalistic, gender-unequal and heteronormative examples and other forms of social exclusion present in today’s educational systems. Our contribution was to stress these issues strongly, and make sure that they find a prominent place amongst the outcomes of the discussions that will serve as guidelines to the work on the relevant departments of the European Commission and the Council of Europe.
Social movements and e-participation as the carriers of modern-day European citizenship
AEGEE-Europe and International Youth Service of Germany, with a presentation of the European Commission’s MYPLACE project, gave inputs at the panel on the impact the crisis has on citizenship in Europe. How can youth work and non-formal education help in promoting participation in society and critical thinking? How can we minimize the risks and maximize the opportunities of new media? What is the future of youth participation, both online and offline? – all these were only some questions raised at the workshops following the Panel discussion.
Ways forward
At the closing of the Symposium, outcomes and proposed solutions of each of the workshop on all three topics were presented. Tina Mulcahy, Head of Youth Department at the Council of Europe and Karin Lopatta-Loibl, the Youth Policy officer at the European Commission’s Directorate for Education and Culture, each in their own capacity, will bring the conclusions forward to all relevant bodies in both the Council of Europe and the European Commission – those working on education, youth policy, unemployment, citizenship and social inclusion. A special focus was given to the matters related to social inclusion, this being one of the priorities for the current Presidency Trio of the European Union. The first follow-up actions are expected already at the Youth Event organized by the Irish Presidency from 10th to 13th March in Dublin.
We are glad to report with positive reflections about the Symposium – we believe only an open communication among learners’ representatives, policy makers, researches, NGOs and other stakeholders, such as that at the Symposium, can lead to developing education that will not only overcome the effects of the crisis but bring the citizens of Europe to the new level of development.
Related readings: OBESSU reaction to Rethinking Education strategy of the European Commission
written by Dejan Bojanic – OBESSU Board Member
