Seeds for Integration

A new initiative by OBESSU to build bridges between migrant children and their peers in secondary schools

New large-scale programmes are being developed and carried out to support migrants' inclusion by a group of EU-level organisations, EPA being one of them. One of the partners, OBESSU, in order to encourage building bridges between migrant children and their peers in secondary schools, decided to launch the project Seeds for Integration. The main idea is to provide small, medium and large seed-grants to secondary school student unions and councils, or - in case there is no student council in the school - to independent groups representing the school’s students, to come up with creative initiatives around the topic of educational inclusion of migrant and refugee children. Read on to learn more about the initiative, and inform secondary school students who would be interested in it.

We will share information on all other projects, including our own, in this cooperation, made possible with the financial support of Open Society Foundation. Follow the EPA blog for new initiatives.

New EU policy recommendations on transforming schools focus on parental involvement and child participation

On 7-8 March a conference in Brussels discussed the results of the ET2020 Working Group on Schools Policy – an expert group of policymakers and stakeholders from more than 30 European countries. The Group’s work over the last two years had focused on identifying successful policy approaches to reducing early school leaving and to raising the quality of Initial Teacher Education. The set of new policy recommendations focus very much on parental involvement and child participation, as well as preparing professionals for this. EPA was represented by Eszter Salamon, President, who was invited to participate at the closing plenary round table discussion, together with representatives of other stakeholder groups, of the event.

TALIS 2013 published - compare your school to country and international averages

OECD has just published the new TALIS results. Unfortunately we don't have a picture of all EPA member countries as only 19 of the 28 EU countries did the survey, but we have results for some non-EU EPA countries like Norway. From a parental point of view the most important finding is what underlines our regular arguments: teachers who engage in collaborative learning and where stakeholder involvement is present, teachers feel more satisfied and valued. Unfortunately parental involvement is not part of the survey. You can compare your own country's results to that of the average if you go to the OECD website.

ICT in Schools - contribute to the survey

The Danish company, Skoleskyen (school cloud) is conducting a EU-wide survey of parents on the use of ICT in schools. The aim of the survey is to find out how much technology is used at schools in Europe. The topic is in line with our conference in Lisbon. This is the reason why we are happy to the share information about the survey to get more parents to participate on request of our Danish member, SOF.

Taught time at school - new Eurydice report

The Eurydice data collection on taught time targets the recommended compulsory curriculum by
grades/stages for full time compulsory education. The intended curriculum, its goals, structure,
subjects and the notional workload for students can be based on regulations or standards defined by
central (or top-level) education authorities or may be established as a set of recommendations at regional
level. In some countries steering documents only include information of main goals of the national
framework curriculum and delegate the taught time allocation to regional/local authorities or to the
discretion of individual schools. In the present data collection, all these sources of information are used to
complement the time allocation between subjects and/or educational stages.

The World Education Forum

The mission of the World Education Forum is to increase the number of children which do gain access to education by influencing National Policy decision-making on a global scale.
The mission of the World Education Forum is to increase the number of children which do gain access to education by influencing National Policy decision-making on a global scale. 

High Quality European Education for All

MEET-Movement for a European Education Trust wants to strengthen and accelerate the development of a European dimension in education at school level. MEET members believe it is time for a new educational paradigm aimed at building a Europe from the ground up and providing equal access to all its citizens who request it. On 9 May 2012, Europe Day, MEET submitted its proposal for a European Citizens' Initiative on a High Quality European Education for All to the European Commission. 16 July 2012: “A High Quality European Education for All” became the 8th European Citizens’ Initiative officially registered by the European Commission.

Desegregation handbook for parents

Wanted: translation and dissemination good practises! Stichting Kleurrijke Scholen recently finished the Handbook Parential Initiatives for desegregation of primary schools. We want this book to be available througout Europe for parents wishing to desegregate pre-primary and primary schools. - Lonneke Sondorp