European Education ministers adopt Reference Framework of the competences required to participate in Democratic Culture

The Council of Europe Standing Conference of Ministers of Education met in Brussels from 11th-12th April for its 25th session. As a result of this conference, The Council of Europe has adopted a new document which outlines the “competences for democratic culture.”

These competences bring together the values, attitudes and skills as well as the knowledge and critical understanding necessary for the exercise of democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue. They have been developed by the Council of Europe with input from over a thousand teachers and experts across the continent. They have now received the formal backing of ministers and will be tested in different settings.

Speakers at the conference included the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, and the EU Commissioner responsible for education, Tibor Navracsics.

As well as the finalisation of the Reference Framework of competencies, two other important sub-themes were discussed by the ministers and officials, who represented over 50 states. One was “Effective citizenship education that prevents violent extremism and combats radicalization leading to terrorism”, which addressed the revisit of the CoE Charter for democratic citizenship and human rights education.

The other sub-theme was “Citizenship education – challenges at the European and global levels,” in which member States discussed the place and role of the Council of Europe as a regional mechanism for following up and reviewing implementation of the UN Agenda.

The European Youth Forum advocates for the implementation of citizenship education programmes in the school setting and for fostering partnerships between formal education providers and youth organisations to ensure quality global citizenship education to all young people.

We call on national ministries of education to implement the reference framework of the Council of Europe in their national education systems. We also firmly call for the inclusion of non formal education and youth organisations in the implementation of the competence framework.

More information about the Conference.

For more information about the position of the European Youth Forum on Education, please see the Policy Paper on Quality Education.

Conference ministerielle education 2016 - © FW-B - Jean POUCET