Council of Europe: 24th Meeting of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education in Helsinki

EPA's President was invited to join the delegation of INGO (Conference of International Non-Governmental Organisations) at this conference.

EPA Newsletter 1/2013

Dear ladies and gentlemen,
dear colleagues and friends of EPA!

Some time has passed since we delivered our last newsletter. EPA has not been inactive since but we encountered some challenges by limiting EPA’s spending for secretariat support. Now the Newsletter is out and you find all the links in this BLOG:

• Newsletter 1/2013 (PDF-file)

The following annexed files are included in the newsletter but partially don' have an active link - please blame Microsoft Office for this ;-( 

Constitution of a Thematic Working Group Early School Leaving in Vocational Education and Training

Early School Leaving had been assigned a key issue in the ET2020 strategy. The ambitious target was set to lower the rate of young people without upper secondary education to 10 % by 2020. The commission agreed on a general definition: ESL was measured at the age cohort 18 an 24 accounting for “NEETs”, young adults Not in Employment, Education or Training. Some discrepancies are caused as on national level different definitions had been established and are still in use in data collection.

By December 2011 DG EAC1 established a High Level Thematic Working Group (TWG) on ESL. This consists of representatives of national ministries of education and experts related to those. In addition several European stakeholder associations were invited to participate. Among them are EPA, OBESSU2 representing the school students in upper secondary education and ETUCE3 representing teachers.

Forms for (potential) EPA members - Vers. 2013

Dear (potential) EPA-members,

This is to disseminate documents intended to update the association's knowledge about membes.

To keep contact with your association and  learn about new representatives, new contact details etc. please check out our actual member's form.

If you are new and want to apply fo membership please send us a letter of application and annex the membership form.

New Comparative Study on School Leadership

A comparative study on Leadership and Governance in Schools was completed by the European Federation
of Education Employers (EFEE). EFEE chose this subject for its first project in the well-founded belief that leadership at school level is of critical importance to the improvement of student results and that there is increasing demand for school leaders and those who hold them into account to rise to new challenges in a rapidly changing environment. While not advocating a common approach to matters best left to national or sub-national level, EFEE wished from the start of the project to acquire a better understanding of the various different approaches and their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Infographic on Finland's Schools

Original picture on 9gag 

Centralised school system educates a homogeneous nation

1.5 million employees, life-long teaching career, unified curriculum prepared by the ministry, large classes, high number of lessons, subject-centered teaching, traditional frontal teaching methods – characteristics of the French school system, the basis of present changes of our education system.

I’m making this interview with Nelly Guet, education expert who was a school principal in France for 22 years as well as directing schools in Switzerland and Germany. She was a board member of ESHA for years so she is familiar with European trends and recommendations. I was asking her about French traditions and the results of their school system.