Educational Disadvantage Centre and European Policy on Social Inclusion in Education

St Patrick's College Educational Disadvantage Centre continues to strengthen its links with the European Commission Directorate-General on Education and Culture (DG-EAC), regarding proposals for European policy on social inclusion in education and dissemination of the Centre’s research findings. On May 17, the Centre Director, Dr. Paul Downes conducted a seminar in the Commission, Place Madou, Brussels, on structural and process indicators for assessing national and regional authorities’ contribution to access to education for traditionally marginalised groups. The seminar was attended by DG-EAC Commission policy officers in a range of areas including lifelong learning, school education and Comenius, higher education, social inequalities, vocational education and training, and statistics.

Paul Downes was also an invited speaker at the workshop, Inclusive, supportive and motivating learning environments for all and how to prevent Early School Leaving, as part of the Commission’s Comenius Regio Conference – Creating European Networks of Regions, in Bordeaux on May 11-12. Dr. Downes’ presentation was entitled, Beyond the OECD 10 Steps to Equity in Education: A Systems Focus on Emotions and Community to Prevent Early School Leaving. The other invited experts across the four conference workshops were Ursula Uzerli, German representative on the European Commission’s peer-learning working group on Teachers, nominated by the German Bundesrat, Dr. Anne Looney, CEO of the Irish National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), and Kevin Smith, Chief Executive of Young Chamber UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last Updated: Thursday May 26 2011