How to start summing up two full years as a Board Member of OBESSU?
The mandate of these five long-serving school student activists started in early summer 2012 when a new OBESSU Board was elected. We had a hard act to follow and were, of course, full of ideas on how to strengthen the platform, on what should be introduced, what should be changed.
What has been achieved?
OBESSU has sharpened its profile over the last two years. We have grown as a platform by accepting new Candidate Organisations from Romania, Luxembourg and Czech Republic and strengthening OBESSU’s work in school student structure development, conducting study visits focused on improving the movement and widening the membership of the platform.
Our representative status to school students in Europe is the key to ensuring participation on behalf of school students in various relevant educational structures. In the past two years OBESSU secured a seat as a permanent observer of the Council of Europe Steering Committee on Educational Policy and Practice (CDPPE). The CDPPE is the advisory body to the Committee of Ministers on all aspects of the Council of Europe’s education programme. The overall aim of the structure is to develop a coherent vision of the role of education, from pre-primary and primary through higher education within a lifelong learning perspective.
We strengthened the work with the OECD by co-operating with specific educational projects. This enabled us to be invited as guest speakers to high level panels and OBESSU was now also part of a OECD Working Group on School Resources.
We continued advocacy towards the European Commission, strengthened contacts with the Parliament and political representatives and structured OBESSU’s work towards the United Nations.
We strongly criticised aspects of the EC communication on Rethinking Education and worked to influence and change its outlook, especially with regard to the way education and school students relate to the labour market.
Naturally, we continued the VET work started by the previous Board. We encouraged our members to prioritise it in their work by holding an online and a face-to-face training for VET campaigners in the spring of 2013. We directed a lot of external work and were recognised as an important VET stakeholder on European level.
OBESSU gained significant recognition through the campaign “Education, We Have a Problem!”, which tackled social inclusion in education. We also conducted research, producing the first-ever OBESSU case study on hidden costs in education
Internally, we implemented a completely new structure: the Pool of Trainers. We used trainers’ expertise in various prep teams and external workshops. In the second year of our mandate we organised a training for trainers, and started involving the trainers in our study visits.
What was in it for us?
Being on the board for two years meant a lot for us, boardies, as we like to call ourselves. We learnt an enormous amount, we stepped out of our comfort zone, we aimed to make OBESSU more transparent for our members, to open up to institutions and partners and we fought for OBESSU to be recognised as an important stakeholder in education. And most importantly, we proudly represented the school students of Europe, which we did with complete dedication and our full hearts.
It was an experience that was worth everything, even endless hours of travelling, lonely time at airports, nights at random hostels, time stapling tickets and filling out reimbursement forms (sometimes forgetting that our signatures are needed) or nights spent at home replying to emails.
Once again, we would like to thank the General Assembly for entrusting us two years ago and for showing us this trust during our mandate as, together with us, we made OBESSU better and stronger.
We also want to thank the amazing, professional and truly inspiring Secretariat members we worked with, the ones we could always rely on, who made our work a lot easier.
Last but not least, we want to thank all the partners, organisations and institutions we worked with and whom we crossed paths with on our fight for better and more inclusive education.
It was an unforgettable ride but now it’s time to let others enjoy this amazing experience, this amazing lifestyle called OBESSU.
Thank you!
Your boardies,
Daniele, Daša, Dejan, Ida, Nora
