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AGENCY eBULLETIN February 2016
In 2016 the Agency is celebrating its 20th anniversary. This year is a milestone on our path towards inclusion, as the Agency’s 29 member countries agreed on a shared ultimate vision for inclusive education systems, which was published in the form of the Agency Position on Inclusive Education Systems.
The ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning project is now completed and all the results are available on the project website. The Guidelines for Accessible Information, an open educational resource, contains useful information on how to create accessible materials for learning. This is now available in 26 languages.
Recommendations from the young people participating at Agency’s European Hearing in Luxembourg have been presented to the European Council of Ministers. The Agency has been working on making these young people’s voices heard and disseminated their messages via a variety of channels.
This issue of the eBulletin also includes news from member countries, updates on the Raising the Achievement of All Learners in Inclusive Education project and other Agency activities.
Read more about these topics below and follow Agency news on our website.
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The Agency's Position on Inclusive Education Systems
The Agency published a position paper which presents Agency member countries’ ultimate vision for inclusive education systems: to ensure that all learners of any age are provided with meaningful, high-quality educational opportunities in their local community, alongside their friends and peers.
All European countries are committed to working towards more inclusive education systems, but they do it in different ways, depending on their past and current contexts and histories. Inclusive education systems are seen as a vital component within the wider aspiration of more socially inclusive societies that all Agency member countries align themselves with, both ethically and politically.
The Agency’s position on inclusive education systems is available now in 23 languages. Information about the wider European and international policy and practice context is available in the annex of the position paper.
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Raising the Achievement of All Learners in Inclusive Education
The Agency’s Raising the Achievement of all Learners project targets decision makers at local and national levels and aims to provide evidence of effective practice in raising achievement in inclusive settings. The project participants from all Agency member countries are primarily school leaders and researchers. The key questions for the project are:
What pedagogical strategies and teaching approaches (e.g. use of ICT, focus on key competences) best support learning and are effective in raising the achievement (academic and social) of all learners?
and
How can school leaders best support:
- The development, implementation and monitoring of inputs and processes for raising achievement?
- The participation of learners, parents/carers in the learning process?
- The ‘measurement’ of all forms of achievement and analysis of outcomes to inform further development?
These questions are being considered in the context of the national/local policy and how it can best support learning communities to undertake organisational development and enable school leaders to raise the achievement of all learners – in particular through collaborative approaches.
In April/May 2015, all project participants had the opportunity to visit one of the three selected learning communities (LCs), in UK (Scotland), Poland and Italy. The visits included a one-day visit to the LC with opportunities to observe in classrooms, talk to learners, staff, parents and other LC partners. Discussions were held on relevant themes to help the LC to identify key questions to explore – with the support of all project participants – via an online forum.
Participants were highly engaged in the school visits and commented that they were able to take away new ideas as well as to offer constructive feedback to the schools/LCs. Since the visits, LCs have reported many positive developments, including a mentoring scheme for new staff (Scotland), the use of external (university) partners for external evaluation (Italy) and the possible development of a centre of excellence for inclusive education (Poland).
The project participants will visit the LCs again in autumn 2016 to consider the progress made and debate the key factors that have contributed to raising the achievement of all learners. A final project meeting will be held (as an event under the Maltese Presidency of the EU) in Malta in spring 2017.
Project forum
An interactive project forum has been set up in order to follow up key issues raised during the visits. This serves as a platform for communication and on-going support on three levels: within the learning communities, between the learning communities and among the ‘international learning zone’.
A particular focus within the forum is on measuring wider achievement as well as academic attainment. This strand will build on the self-review document produced for the project and used by Learning Communities before the first project visit and again towards the end of the project. The project views all stakeholders as learners – in particular leaders and teachers – and looks to raise the achievement of everyone involved in the education process.
Project updates and information on outputs are continuously made available on the project web area.
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Results of the ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning project
All the results of the ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning (ICT4IAL) three-year project are available now on the www.ict4ial.eu project website. The ICT4IAL project completed in 2015 and it was based on a multi-disciplinary network formed by the Agency with European Schoolnet (EUN), the International Association of Universities (IAU), UNESCO, the DAISY Consortium and the Global Initiative of Inclusive ICTs (G3ICT).
The Guidelines for Accessible Information have been developed together with the partners and with input from experts from Agency and partners’ member countries. This is a tool to support practitioners and organisations that provide information for learning in creating accessible materials. Making your Organisation’s Information Accessible For All is a supporting document for organisations that are searching for a systematic way to provide accessible information in general and for learning in particular. This document includes recommendations looking at processes and staff involved within an organisation as well as providing models for the process of becoming an organisation that provides accessible information.
Over a series of events, project partners raised awareness and provided practical trainings on information accessibility. At the Guidelines Development Workshop in 2013, input was collected from 56 experts from 26 countries, leading to an agreed version of the draft Guidelines. EUN, IAU and G3ict organized international seminars in Brussels, Ankara and Milan, with a total of over 170 participants from all around the globe. The International Conference in Riga, May 2015, was an official event of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU, supported by the Latvian Ministry of Education and the National Centre of Education. The Guidelines were presented and demonstrated to over 70 experts and practitioners from the field of education and ICT. Participants agreed that the Guidelines are a useful tool for a wide range of professionals, such as school and university staff, librarians, communication officers, authors of teaching and learning materials and publishers.
The Guidelines are available now in 26 languages, including Arabic, Chinese and Russian. The www.ict4ial.eu project website hosts this open source educational resource, where users can register and comment in English.
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Watch a video here on the European Hearing and young people's recommendations
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Luxembourg Recommendations
The outcomes of the Agency’s fourth Hearing entitled ‘Inclusive education: Take action!’ are now available on the Agency website. The Luxembourg Recommendations were created based on the discussions and input from the seventy-two young people who participated in the European Hearing on 16 October 2015.
The event took place under the aegis of the Luxembourg Presidency of the European Union, aiming to empower and ensure the involvement of learners in shaping educational policies. Young people with and without disabilities came together to discuss how their schools and communities ensure an inclusive education for them.
During the Hearing workshops, young delegates discussed key issues related to the implementation of inclusive practice: ways in which their schools support them in their education, examples of how teachers and classmates take into account their needs, accessibility, class organisation and suggestions for ways to overcome remaining barriers to inclusion.
The recommendations were then presented to the Council of Ministers during the 'Education, Youth, Culture and Sport' meeting on 23 November 2015 as well as at the last Education Committee on 2–3 December 2015.
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Click here to watch a video on the young people's impressions at the European Hearing
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Five messages
The Luxembourg Recommendations are grouped around five key messages expressed by the young delegates:
- Everything about us, with us – young people should be directly involved in all decision-making that concerns them;
- Barrier-free schools – all physical and technical barriers must be eliminated;
- Breaking down stereotypes – what lies behind the concept of ‘normality’. If we accept that everybody is different, who is then ‘normal’? People should behave with mutual respect and tolerance;
- Diversity is the mix, inclusion is what makes the mix work – everyone should focus on what can be done, not on what cannot be done;
- Becoming full citizens – inclusive education is a crucial aspect to full inclusion in society. It is essential to be included in mainstream schools in order to be included in society.
During the Hearing, the young people also described in concrete and practical terms what universal design means for them, why peer-tutoring, co-operative learning, and individualised programmes have a positive effect on their education.
For more information, visit the Take action web area.
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A New Generation of Working Groups in the Service of ET 2020 Priorities
The Agency has become a member of a new generation of Working Groups to work within the Education and Training 2020 (ET 2020) strategic framework. The kick-off meeting will take place in Brussels on 22 and 23 February in the presence of EU Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Tibor Navracsics, where the Agency will be represented in the Working Group on Promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education.
The ET 2020 strategic framework covers learning of all forms and at all levels of the lifelong learning process, including early childhood education and schools through to higher education, vocational education and training and adult learning.
ET 2020 Working Groups are designed to help Member States address the key challenges of their education and training systems, as well as common priorities agreed at European level. The 2015 Joint Report that was adopted at the Education Council on 23 November 2015 calls for ‘a new generation of Working Groups to work on ET 2020 priority areas’. In addition to peer learning activities, already part of Working Groups, innovative working methods will be encouraged in the new groups. The dissemination of good practices and real knowledge sharing will be enhanced through thematic events, policy learning exchanges and other means of knowledge transfer.
The following six Working Groups will operate between February 2016 and June 2018:
- on Schools
- on the Modernisation of Higher Education
- on Vocational Education and Training
- on Adult Learning
- Digital Skills and Competences
- on Promoting citizenship and the common values of freedom, tolerance and non-discrimination through education
For more information, visit the European Commission’s website.
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Agency Participation at Events
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International Comparisons Conference
On 28–29 January the Agency participated in the International Comparisons Conferece in Paris. Inclusive education should ensure equality and equity among students and ensure that school is really a ‘school for all’. With this premise, the aim of the event was to support an in-depth reflection on the French system of education and to propose concrete measures at national level regarding inclusive education.
Read more
Day of Persons with Disabilities
The Agency participated on the Day of Persons with Disabilities, organised on 7–8 December in Brussels by the Commission DG for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion in co-operation with the European Disability Forum. The event focused on children and young people with disability under the theme: 'Growing together in a barrier-free Europe'.
Read more
Luxembourg Presidency – Education Committee
The last meeting of the Luxembourg Presidency in the field of education was held in Luxembourg on 3 and 4 December 2015. Here the Agency was invited to present its work to the Education Committee of the Council of the EU, in particular the Agency’s position on inclusive education systems and the outcomes of the ‘Inclusive Education: Take Action’ European Hearing that the Agency organised as one of the events of the Luxembourgish EU Presidency programme.
Read more
Include and Empower
The Agency presented the Inclusive Early Childhood Education project at ‘Include and Empower’, an international conference on improving the rights and wellbeing of disabled children and young people, organised on 3-4 December in Edinburgh by the Children in Scotland and Eurochild.
Read more
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