Playful solutions to tackle the global learning crisis

Both the World Economic Forum and the World Bank have warned us of a major ’learning crisis’. It effects a large number of children who are not in school, but also those who do attend it. The LEGO Idea Conference 2018 (10-11 April, Billund) tried to offer solutions for it on several levels: the breadth of skills an individual child needs to develop, attitudes and behaviour of adults around them, the collective impact of their community and the social norms and requirements of society. Experts, researchers and practitioners discussed their ideas and practice, ones that all have a certain playful element.

Building bridges between all forms and sectors of education is the future of learning in Europe

LLLP Response to Future of Learning Package

The Lifelong Learning Platform welcomes the prominence given to education and training at the EU level in recent months. At the Gothenburg Social Summit on 17 November, EU leaders had an informal lunch debate on education and culture for the first time. In the run-up to this debate, the European Commission set out a vision for a European Education Area by 2025 in the Communication “Strengthening European Identity through Education and Culture”. The Commission followed this with the launch of a new Future of Learning package in January this year and the same month the first ever European Education Summit took place in Brussels, gathering over 20 national Ministers for Education to discuss equity and diversity in education.

The Lifelong Learning Platform views these developments as a positive step forward for EU-level cooperation in the field of education and training. This momentum should continue with a clear commitment from Member States and a concrete follow-up to the ambitious discussions at the Education Summit. We wish to stress, however, that the follow-up steps taken by the European Commission and Member States should be rooted in a holistic vision of education, which means looking at education in its universal scope and not exclusively at one specific sector (e.g. schools) or at the sole purpose of labour market demands. This is why we call for a European Lifelong Learning Area which encompasses all levels, sectors and forms of learning - formal, non-formal and informal - in order to truly be of benefit to all EU citizens. After all, not all young people are students and not all students are young people - we need education policies that match this 21st century reality.