Once again, AEGEE-Europe did it! Our organization is now part of the Steering Committe of The European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning (EUCIS-LLL) and it’s represented by Lucille Rieux, member of the Comité Directeur, from whom we took an interesting interview in order to find out more about this new great achievement.
The AEGEEan: First of all, congratulations to AEGEE-Europe for this great achievement! Tell us more about this collaboration. How did it all start?
Lucille Rieux: Behind those strange letters “EUCIS-LLL”, lies actually a pretty simple vision: this Network is striving for a comprehensive and universal
vision of Education, which is not limited to formal Education and encompasses also Non Formal, Informal and Lifelong learning. EUCIS-LLL is the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning, and is one of the main interlocutor of the European Institutions, regarding Education and life long learning issues. AEGEE has been a member of EUCIS-LLL for several years already, and by being a member, we have been pooling our efforts with other youth and educational organisations, to strive for a holistic vision on Education, and to increase the recognition of Non Formal Education for example. Our contribution was quite limited until now to attending the annual conferences and joining working group meetings of the platform. However, we have realized that it could be a good thing to be even more involved, and to bring our priorities to the EUCIS-LLL platform as well.
The Steering Committee deals especially with administrative matters, so what’s exactly AEGEE’s role in this?
Well, the Steering Committee doesn’t really deal with administrative matters. EUCIS-LLL doesn’t have the same structure as AEGEE, and they have a paid secretariat, here in Brussels, who deals with administrative work; The Steering Committee’s role is rather to define the priorities and the vision of the platform and to make the political decisions regarding the topics of the conferences and meetings that EUCIS is organizing. AEGEE will be represented by me, and I will then join the Steering Committee meetinga which take place in Brussels.
AEGEE-Europe is part of the board for the next 3 years, but what are the most urgent issues to come to grips with during the next year?
Indeed, we have been elected for 3 years, which has the advantage of giving some continuity to our work on the platform. The most urgent issues that we will be dealing with, are definitely the new European programes for 2014-2020. EUCIS-LLL will try to strengthen the voice of the civil society and make sure that our needs are answered (for example, lobbying for administrative grants for Youth organisations, being involved in the manual guide etc). In the current context, one of the priority is the recognition and validation of Non Formal and Informal Education/learning (NFE). There is a “momentum”, since in December 2012, the European Commission published a recommendation on “validation of the non formal and informal learning” and there is an interest from the European Institution, but still a huge gap to make them understand the impact of NFE and the need to recognize it further.
How would AEGEE benefit from this new collaboration?
Basically, by being involved in the Steering Committee, AEGEE will have more space for pushing and strengthening the youth voice in the field of education. We will benefit from the network also as EUCIS-LLL is gathering more than 40 organisations active in the field of education and life long learning. It will enable us to create bridges with other organisation and to more easily join common initiative on the European level. On local level of course, the impact of AEGEE being part of the steering committee is a bit less visible, but yet, I am confident that AEGEE will disseminate to the members in a very transparent way, the opportunities which will be given to us.
What are the expectations of AEGEE-Europe, focusing on lifelong learning?
Well, from AEGEE-Europe, in a European context, we hope that the vision of Education and learning will finally be understood as a life long process, and support will be given to learning providers, even though they are not from the formal education system. It is high time the European Institutions provide a framework to understand and validate further Non Formal, Informal and Vocational learning. On the other hand, AEGEE-Europe also expects the network to be involved in those issues. Indeed, education is one of our core topics, due to our identity (representing young people and especially students) however, we do expect the network to take the lead on those issues and to bring back the topic of Education in AEGEE’s daily activities, by increase awareness of life long learning among our members but also to develop activities or projects on those issues. AEGEE has to be one of the main stakeholders in order to defend a vision of Education outside the classroom, since we have a big experience in this field!
Written by Cosmina Bisboaca , AEGEE-Torino