Brussels, 26 May 2023

Providing support tailored to our members’ needs

In 2022, our pedagogical and advocacy related engagement helped Croatia with the opening of their first Steiner Waldorf upper school.

Faced with opportunities to grow: our Croatian members reach out for help

All through­out the year, ECSWE has invest­ed its resources in pro­vid­ing tai­lored sup­port upon the request from Croa­t­i­a’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive Marin­ka Špod­n­jak and her team. As the Croa­t­ian edu­ca­tion law is in revi­sion, the nation­al Stein­er Wal­dorf asso­ci­a­tion aims for embed­ding in it an arti­cle that would pre­scribe 80% pub­lic fund­ing for alter­na­tive schools, as with­out that arti­cle, Stein­er Wal­dorf schools in the coun­try get about 10–15% fund­ing from the government.

In par­al­lel, Rijeka’s pri­ma­ry school advo­cat­ed for obtain­ing a gov­ern­ment approval for the first Stein­er Wal­dorf upper school in Croa­t­ia. To sup­port these needs, ECSWE has advised the Croa­t­ian team on advo­ca­cy mat­ters, has sent four let­ters direct­ly to the Croa­t­ian edu­ca­tion min­istry, sent its del­e­ga­tion includ­ing Mar­tyn Raw­son and Dora Šimunović to an in-per­son meet­ing with the Min­istry in Zagreb, and pro­vid­ed two expert reviews of the Croa­t­ian upper school curriculum.

Engaging in a networking opportunity with our French members

From 30 to 31 May 2022, our advo­ca­cy and PR coor­di­na­tor Dora Šimunović and a del­e­ga­tion from our French mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed at the Life­long Learn­ing Lab in Nice, France. This event was organ­ised by our part­ners at the Life­long Learn­ing Plat­form with the inten­tion of bring­ing togeth­er French gov­ern­ment offi­cials with French civ­il soci­ety rep­re­sen­ta­tives to dis­cuss edu­ca­tion and train­ing. The con­fer­ence pro­vid­ed the French Stein­er Wal­dorf fed­er­a­tion a space for net­work­ing and shar­ing good prac­tices under the top­ic of “Life­long learn­ing enti­tle­ments for the future of Europe”.

Dutch secondary school teachers learn about our work

Upon invi­ta­tion by our Dutch rep­re­sen­ta­tive Allert De Geus, our man­ag­ing direc­tor Georg Jür­gens and our com­mu­ni­ty devel­op­ment coor­di­na­tor Sietske van Poel­geest pre­sent­ed the work of ECSWE at a Fes­ti­val of the Dutch Sec­ondary Schools on 22 Sep­tem­ber 2022 in Arn­hem. The pre­sen­ta­tion cov­ered ECSWE’s advo­ca­cy in Brus­sels, its work in transna­tion­al EU projects such as the HERMMES project, and its work in con­nect­ing and sup­port­ing its nation­al mem­ber asso­ci­a­tions. After­wards, a live­ly dis­cus­sion took place with the par­tic­i­pat­ing teach­ers on the role of the EU in edu­ca­tion, and ECSWE’s input into stake­hold­er con­sul­ta­tions and work­ing groups at EU level.