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Agency eBulletin September 2024

Dear eBulletin Subscriber,

This eBulletin brings details of the new Director of the Agency.

Find out about the Agency’s spring bi-annual meeting, including the closing event of the Building Resilience through Inclusive Education Systems activity. There is also information about the latest European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education dataset.

The newsletter provides details of individual country support to Agency member countries, including a re-audit of Malta’s inclusive education system and projects with the European Commission’s Technical Support Instrument.

Finally, there are links to updates on the Agency’s participation in international events and activities.

For more news from the Agency, visit the News section

 
 

Agency news and resources

 

Agency appoints new Director


The Agency is happy to announce the appointment of Dr João Costa as our new director from 1 January 2025.

Dr Costa will take over from the current director, Dr Cor J. W. Meijer, who, after almost 20 years in the director’s chair, will leave for a well-deserved retirement at the end of 2024.

Find out more about the appointment.
 

Working for and with member countries: Agency 2024
bi-annual meetings

The spring 2024 bi-annual meeting of Agency country representatives took place in Tallinn, Estonia, on 21–24 May. Over 50 country representatives attended the meeting in May, to exchange on inclusive education in their countries and to discuss current and future Agency work.

Read more about the spring bi-annual meeting.

The next bi-annual meeting will take place in Warsaw, Poland, in November, ahead of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2025. This will be the last bi-annual meeting for the Agency’s Director and Assistant Director, who will both step down at the end of 2024.

Cor J. W. Meijer, Piret Liba, Liina Põld and Don Mahon

Cor J. W. Meijer (Agency Director), Piret Liba (Representative Board member for Estonia), Liina Põld (Deputy Secretary General for General Education and Youth Affairs in Estonia) and Don Mahon (Agency Chair) at the bi-annual meeting in Tallinn.

 

Building Resilience through Inclusive Education Systems: closing event

The Agency presented its Guidance for Establishing a Culture of Effective Communication in Education during an event to mark the end of the Building Resilience through Inclusive Education Systems (BRIES) activity.
 
The event also launched an animated video, which provides an overview of the guidance and explains how stakeholders can use it to improve communication within their education systems. The video is available on the Agency’s website and YouTube channel, and includes subtitles in the Agency’s 25 official languages.

Find out more about the event and the BRIES outputs.

Still image from the BRIES video
BRIES Guidance for Establishing a Culture of Effective Communication in Education video
 
Logo: European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education

European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education for 2021/2022 school year

As part of its European Agency Statistics on Inclusive Education (EASIE) annual data collection work, the Agency has published new data for the 2021/2022 school year from 16 Agency member countries. EASIE data informs country-level work on learners’ rights issues connected to equity and participation in inclusive education.

Read more about the data.

 

Individual country support

 

Fieldwork in re-audit of the inclusive education system in Malta

Logo: Malta National Education Strategy 2024-2030The Agency has conducted fieldwork as part of its re-audit of Malta’s inclusive education system, which is taking place ten years after the original audit in 2014. The fieldwork aimed to gather information on the experiences of inclusive education in Malta of a broad range of stakeholders, from all sectors and levels of education.

Find out more about the re-audit and the fieldwork.

 

Technical Support Instrument

The Agency is working as a technical provider for several actions under the European Commission’s Technical Support Instrument (TSI). The Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) co-ordinates and provides tailor-made technical support to European Union Member States via TSI actions, in co-operation with the relevant Commission services. Read more about the Agency’s TSI work.

More inclusive education through stakeholder engagement in Italy, Portugal and Spain

A series of stakeholder engagement activities have been completed in the TSI EUROCH project in Italy, Portugal and Spain. The project aims to promote equal access and combat regional disparities in implementing inclusive education provisions across the three countries.
Find out more about the stakeholder engagement work.

Stakeholder consultations on inclusive quality education in Ireland

A series of workshops have taken place as part of a multi-country TSI project to promote equity in education in Finland and Ireland. The workshops aimed to collect stakeholders’ perspectives on the current situation in education in Ireland. Similar workshops will take place in Finland later in 2024.
Read more about the workshops.

Promoting inclusive education in Greece – final conference

The final conference for the Implementation of the European Child Guarantee – Promoting Inclusive Education in Greece, Phase 2 TSI project took place on 23 September. Representatives from the Greek Ministry and the Agency presented the project’s results and how it has promoted inclusive education in Greece.
Read more about the conference.

More news items about the Agency’s individual country support work

 

International events and collaboration

Click on the links to find out more about the Agency’s involvement in the following international events and activities:

  • The European Commission Working Group on Schools peer-learning activity, which explored ways to build teachers’ and school leaders’ capacity to create more inclusive environments and bridge the gap between inclusive education policy and practice
  • A new UNESCO report summarising the highlights and final recommendations from the high-level policy debate to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Salamanca Statement
  • The first Symposium on School Inclusion held by the National Observatory of Children, Youth and School Quality in Luxembourg, which provided an opportunity to foster collaboration and networking
  • The 2024 European Conference on Educational Research, which provides an inclusive platform for researchers and academics to share and discuss educational research, including the Agency’s Guidance for Establishing a Culture of Effective Communication in Education.
Amanda Watkins speaking into a microphone
The Agency’s Assistant Director Amanda Watkins at the UNESCO event commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Salamanca Statement. Watch her full input in the UNESCO video, from minute 52.
 

 

 
 

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