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Authors
Federica Chiezzi
Education for inclusion
2010 European Awards for Lifelong Learning and a new European Legislation for combating poverty and social exclusion.
The Spanish Presidency of the European Union has placed, in 2010, an emphasis on more education and training, better quality and comprehensive inclusion.
One of the priorities of the European Year for combating poverty and social exclusion relates to the importance of facilitating access to education and training to all, regardless of age or social group.
To prove how important is the education in supporting social cohesion, active citizenship, intercultural dialogue and equality between men and women, six EU-funded education projects aimed at promoting social inclusion were named on May, 19 as winners of the 2010 European Awards for Lifelong Learning. The winning projects are from
The European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, said: "The EU's Lifelong Learning Programme supports transnational projects in education and training that really make a difference at grassroots level. I congratulate the six winning projects: they can be particularly proud of their contribution in this European Year of Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion."
The awards were for projects in school education (funded by the EU 'Comenius programme'), higher education ('Erasmus' programme), adult education ('Grundtvig' programme) and vocational training ('Leonardo da Vinci'), as well as 'Languages' and 'Information and Communication Technologies'.
The awards were announced at a conference in
Another contribution to help fight poverty came from the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), an EU consultative body with representatives of economic groups and social organizations from the 27 Member States, which held an international conference in Florence, Italy, from 20 to 22 May, to gather experts and decision-makers in the field of education and social exclusion and to ask for a new European Legislation to focus on social issues:
"The first step towards a European policy to combat social exclusion should be the launch of a Green Paper on education as a tool for combating poverty and exclusion. We urge the European Commission to act on our request as soon as possible, bearing in mind the valuable support which civil society can offer here", says EESC president Mario Sepi.
Some of the ideas floated in Florence included teaching Muslim immigrants European languages in mosques to favour social integration, supporting the education of women and young people, backing life-long training and supporting businesses that act in favour of social integration.
Education has been recognized as a key pathway out of poverty and social exclusion, but there is still the need to harmonize the educational system among EU Member States, remove the barriers to guarantee an equal access to educational projects, improve the quality and efficiency of education and training and enhancing creativity and innovation not only for poor people but for everybody.
As Mr. Sepi said during the
Article by: Federica Chiezzi
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