Towards a Youth Friendly Europe!

The structured dialogue on the overall theme of social inclusion of all young people has been identified as the way to make Europe more adequate and inclusive for all youth. But like all representative and democratic processes, it takes many steps to reach the final Resolution on social inclusion of Young people.

What is the structured dialogue?

Structured dialogue means that governments and administrations, including EU institutions, discuss chosen themes with young people, in order to obtain results which are useful for policy-making. The debate is structured in terms of themes and timing: events where young people can discuss the agreed themes amongst themselves and also with EU and national policy-makers are organised on a regular basis. The structured dialogue aims at addressing all young people, including those with fewer opportunities or who are not formally organised. Yet, youth organisations have a vital role to play in the structured dialogue, as they speak on behalf of a great number of young people.

The main actors coordinating the structured dialogue on the EU level are the European Commission, the EU Presidency and the European Youth Forum, but they cannot reach conclusions alone: Member States, National Youth Councils and International Youth Organisations (OBESSU being one of them) play a fundamental role for the true implementation of the process.

Step 1: Consultations on national level and amongst memberships of International Non-Governmental Youth Organisations  (INGYOs)

Between the end of November 2012 and mid-February 2013, across Europe, National Working Groups from 27 Member states of the EU and 10 International Youth Organisations held consultations with young people about social inclusion in their communities. Some OBESSU conclusions to these consultations are as follows:

• We believe that social and economic standings must never be a barrier for accessing and attending school and therefore everyone should have a right to free education;
• Students need to be included in all decision making processes concerning education;
• One of the challenges is social reproduction which is seen in the fact that children tend to end up on a certain educational path depending on the schooling of their parents;
• OBESSU works a lot to promote and to improve vocational education and training in order to make it equal to academic education and so all students have the same opportunities and are not excluded at any level within the society;
• All schools should be free of any costs;
• We think that school should be free from any kind of discrimination and segregation based on social status and cooperation between school and local networks engaged with social issues;
• All school students should have the same opportunities when it comes to choosing their education;
• All schools must have anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies.

You may read the full contribution of OBESSU with all our inputs for better social inclusion in Europe here.

Overall, 11,000 young people were involved in the consultations, either through the National Working Groups or through INGYOs, although the number is much higher since for some consultations it was difficult to calculate the real number of people contributing. The consultations showed that some groups of young people are at a higher risk of exclusion than others:

We are glad to report that in the final document with the joint conclusions of all consultations, many of OBESSU’s inputs were visible in the final document, especially those regarding education. The final conclusions related to 7 overarching topics which are: Employment, Education, Participation, Welfare, Social and Youth Services for young people, Youth Organisations and Quality of Youth Work.

You can read the final document with all the conclusions from the consultations here.

Step 2: Youth Conference

The EU Youth Conference of the Irish Presidency took place in Dublin from the 11^th to 13^th March 2013, gathering over 150 young people – including a representative from OBESSU – and 100 policy makers from across Europe – including Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth. Young people worked together with policy-makers to tailor the final recommendations that will feed in the second phase of the structured dialogue process with young people under the Lithuanian Presidency and will also contribute to the development of a Council Resolution on Social Inclusion to be proposed during the Greek Presidency. In order to achieve inclusive education for all young people, the following demands were highlighted:

• To provide a holistic approach to education, sustainable frameworks that ensure collaboration between formal and non-formal education and learning should be established, whilst platforms between schools, universities, youth organisations and non-formal learning providers are also developed;
• Secure equal access to free and good quality education from primary to tertiary level for all young people, including those with citizenship other than that of the country of residence, and others at risk of social exclusion;
• To build a culture of understanding, acceptance and respect, education systems must promote participation in decision-making, diversity and inclusion rather than focus solely on exams and certificates. This should also be reflected in everyday school practices.

The final conclusions for the remaining 6 topics discussed at the Youth Conference can be found here.

OBESSU is delighted to partner with all the institutions and organisations involved and give its contribution to the process, being proactive and participating in the process from the very beginning, even though it was initially not planned to have inputs from international platforms, but only national youth structures. We will continue to loudly represent school students in order to ensure that in the long run all stakeholders will commit to enable accessible, free and inclusive education for all young people.

Written by Dejan Bojanic