Brussel, 04 May 2018

European Parliament: MEPs call for educational choice
european parliament
We are happy that the adopted resolution on “Modernisation of Education in the EU” contains key demands of our advocacy.

On 25th April 2018, the Euro­pean Parliament’s Com­mit­tee on Cul­ture and Edu­ca­tion adopt­ed its res­o­lu­tion on “Mod­erni­sa­tion of Edu­ca­tion in the EU”. The rap­por­teur, MEP Krysti­na Lybac­ka, aimed to deter­mine the new direc­tion of edu­ca­tion in the future. We are hap­py to report that the adopt­ed text con­tains key demands of our advo­ca­cy such as free­dom of parental school choice, pub­lic school fund­ing and our call for an age-appro­pri­ate media education.

The draft report of Jan­u­ary 2018 already put a strong empha­sis on the holis­tic devel­op­ment of chil­dren as well as cre­ativ­i­ty and well-being but ideas like age-appro­pri­ate ICT and media ped­a­gogy, free­dom of parental school choice and pub­lic fund­ing for non-prof­it schools were still miss­ing. Togeth­er with our nation­al mem­bers and Euro­pean part­ners, we approached MEPs to pro­mote changes in this regard.

One key achieve­ment is a para­graph estab­lish­ing the right to free­dom of edu­ca­tion­al choice that calls for pub­lic school fund­ing. Oth­er inter­est­ing amend­ments include the notions of age- and devel­op­ment appro­pri­ate media edu­ca­tion, more auton­o­my for schools regard­ing cur­ric­u­la and diver­si­ty in assessment.

ECSWE will close­ly fol­low the next steps and report on the Euro­pean Par­lia­men­t’s ple­nary vote in June.

A question? Please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Georg Jürgens