The spring 2021 meeting of the Agency’s member country representatives takes place on 26–27 May. These twice-yearly meetings are an opportunity for representatives from the Agency’s 31 member countries to discuss the progress of various Agency activities, determine future work and approve budgets and accounts. The meetings also allow representatives to share information and ideas about inclusive education in their countries.
As with both of the 2020 bi-annual meetings, the spring 2021 bi-annual meeting will be online. Alongside approval of work programmes, accounts and budgets, Agency staff will present updates on Agency projects and activities. These will include the Supporting Inclusive School Leadership, Teacher Professional Learning for Inclusion and Changing Role of Specialist Provision in Supporting Inclusive Education projects, the European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education and the activities with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM).
There will also be a progress update on the latest Key Principles report, which is due for publication later this year. This will be the fourth Key Principles report, following those in 2003, 2009 and 2011. The Key Principles work identifies recurring themes in Agency work that support the Agency’s vision of high-quality, inclusive education for all learners.
Agency staff will present two proposed new projects for approval:
- a new activity exploring how the Agency can better involve the voices of learners in its work;
- an investigation of education responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and how inclusive education systems can help to build resilience for future crises.
Finally, in addition to updates on the Agency’s projects, there will be a presentation on the recently published Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report and the Regional Report for Central and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. The theme of both GEM reports is inclusion and education. The Agency collaborated on the Regional Report alongside UNESCO’s GEM Report Team and the Network of Education Policy Centers. Representatives from all three organisations will present the reports’ main findings to the Agency country representatives. More details on the GEM Report and the GEM Regional Report are available on the Agency news page.