How to empower parents for a better quality of childhood – EPA co-organised talk in the European Parliament

Professor Ramon Flecha (CREA, University of Barcelona) gave a Quality of Childhood talk on 8 November in the European Parliament on scientifically evidenced methods to empower parents to become more successful educators. This was a major event for EPA to raise awareness of the importance of empowering parents, and also to raise awareness about EPA among MEPs. The event was hosted by MEP István Újhelyi (S&D, Hungary, member of the Lifelong Learning Interest Group of the EP). It was the 61^st talk, the first ever to be co-hosted by EPA, and has been for 2 years in the pipeline.

Our host MEP Újhelyi called the attention of the audience, including professionals as well as people from the EP, to the importance of investing in children and empowering parents as part of this investment. To invest in an equitable way can not only decrease child poverty at present, but also help preventing the recreation of poverty of forthcoming generations.

A child rights perspective on parental involvement and child participation

This paper was prepared for school heads and assistant heads participating at a school leadership training, but it may also be useful for all parents and teachers for designing a rights-based participatory system in their schools. It also contains some child rights aspects to be considered generally in education, some of them often violated, a couple of them are regularly violated on the basis of false assumptions on responsibility or out of ignorance. With 20 November, the day we celebrate the rights of the child, approaching, it seems to be a timely publication. The logo illustrating the article is awarded to schools respecting the rights of the child. There is a lot to be done to achieve that.