On 21st March EFIL and EEE-YFU organised the event ‘Towards more exchanges for pupils’ at the European Parliament (EP), thanks to the support of the Member of European Parliament Emilian Pavel and the EP Youth Intergroup of which he is Vice-Chair.
You can access the full report of the event here.
The agenda of the event featured two panel discussions, one on Recognition of school study periods abroad and one on More pupil mobility in the future Erasmus+ programme . The panels were the occasion to promote the campaigns that EFIL and EEE-YFU are running together on these topics since summer 2017, and the related studies and policy papers, and hear from the EU institutions their position and the foreseen next steps. Both topics are included as top priority in the European Commission’s initiative ‘European Education area’ launched in November 2017.
We had the honour to hear from the two main political groups of the European Parliament, that they will endorse any further initiative for supporting Member states in putting in place frameworks for recognition of school study periods abroad. Moreover, Petra Goran from the European Commission outlined that they are working on a proposal for a recommendation to be adopted by Member states, which calls on an automatic recognition of school study periods abroad based on learning outcomes, and not subjects, and will encourage peer learning among Member states. OBESSU, representing school students unions, expressed the full support to the initiative which would advance inclusive education and the promotion of intercultural learning.
We also had the pleasure to hear from MEP Zver that the Parliament will support an increase of funding for pupil mobility in Erasmus+, easier application procedures and the possibility for non profit organisations expert in mobility to join forces with schools to run pupil exchange projects. The Head of the School Unit at the European Commission, Michael Teutsch, confirmed that the plan is to boost mobility of pupils in general school and vocational training as from 2021, with a particular focus on short term mobilities in order to increase outreach. The Chair of the Education Council of the EU, Yasen Gyurov, has shared that Member states fully adhere to the above mentioned proposals advanced by the European Commission.
To know more about our claims on both topics, you can visit the related websites and access the policy papers:
- pupilmobility.eu – Policy paper
- recognisestudyabroad.eu – Overview of recognition practices in 27 countries – Policy paper
The event was attended by 50 stakeholders, namely representatives from Member states’ Ministries of education (Romania, Sweden, Austria), NGOs, teachers, teacher educators, European Platforms such as the European Youth Forum, the Lifelong Learning Platform, Eurodesk.
The European Commission will release on 2nd May the proposal on recognition of study abroad and on 29th May the proposal for the new Erasmus+