The Agency has developed a new video to accompany its Voices into Action (VIA) activity.
Filmed during the VIA final event in spring 2023, the video features learners and their families discussing the impact that participating in educational decision-making has had on them. These families and learners from Iceland, Malta, Norway and Serbia took part in several workshops, both with their peers and in mixed groups with policy‑makers. Learners especially highlighted the value of the mixed group sessions, where they had the opportunity to interact freely with policy-makers and be heard by the decision-makers around them. As one learner stated, ‘I would like to see the interaction of students and teachers be more equal because we are going to school, not teachers’.
The VIA activity examined the critical issue of involving the voices of learners and their families and how to effectively include them in decision-making. VIA Activity Manager Anthoula Kefallinou opens the video with a clear message: ‘An inclusive education system cannot be realised without the active involvement of all stakeholders in its development’. This sentiment runs through the video and the wider VIA activity, both of which aim to include a variety of voices.
The video also introduces the VIA Framework for Meaningful Participation and the VIA Online Toolkit, a digital resource to support learner and family participation in educational decision-making. Finally, educational policy-makers from participating countries discussed how the VIA activity and framework have impacted their work, highlighting the importance of acting upon learner and family voices and including the most silenced or marginalised learners.
Watch the video below or on the Agency’s YouTube channel. Visit the VIA web area for more information, where you can also explore the VIA Toolkit.