Non-formal education is really important in our organisation and hundreds of trainings are delivered to our members every year. Trainers are those who share their skills and their knowledge with participants. A group of 13 trainers from different AEGEE locals gathered in Wrocław from the 13th until the 15th of January for the 2017 edition of the Trainers’ Forum. Along with 100 other young trainers from other NGOs, they spent three valuable days discussing, practising and sharing their experiences with training and non-formal education. 

What is the Trainers’ Forum?

Antonis: Officially, the Trainers’ Forum (TsF) is an international conference for trainers and facilitators with various backgrounds. Unofficially, it is an opportunity for any trainer or facilitator, regardless of experience, to get a glimpse into the magic world of trainers, see new topics and approaches in non-formal education, get inspired by the work of other trainers and even form alliances that will have an impact on society.

Zsofia: Trainers’ Forum started out a few years ago, as an informal gathering for youth trainers and, by 2017, it has become an official conference for more than 100 youth trainers from NGOs of many disciplines. It is a great event for trainers to share best practices, reflect on the current trends in non-formal education and build their professional network.

When and where did it take place?

Petra:  TsF took place in a lovely Polish city, Wrocław, in the second week of chilly January from the 13th until the 15th. During these dates, the temperature was low, but coffee and tea breaks and hunting the famous 350 Wrocław dwarfs kept us warm. There were several of them near the Wrocław University of Science and Technology, where we had our sessions, and nearby the dormitories, where we stayed in bedrooms for two and three people.

Who were in the AEGEE “Delegation” ?

Balázs: There were 13 people from all over the Network, namely Anna Ziętkiewicz (AEGEE-Wrocław), Antonis Triantafyllakis (AEGEE-Academy/AEGEE-Cluj-Napoca), Balázs Kovács (AEGEE-Debrecen), Emanuel Knodt (AEGEE-Bamberg), Jorge Miguel Vielva (AEGEE-Valladolid), Jorge Sánchez Hernández (AEGEE-Dresden), Mayri Tiido (AEGEE-Tartu), Noémi Lőwy (AEGEE-Debrecen), Paolo Ghisleni (AEGEE-Bergamo), Paweł Cieślak (AEGEE-Warszawa), Petra Buruzs (AEGEE-Budapest), Urša Svetelj (AEGEE-Ljubljana) and Zsófia Komáromi (AEGEE-Budapest).

Zsofia: It was great that this edition of TsF brought together trainers from several generations and many different locals. This also allowed us to learn from each other and discuss the current projects and challenges in AEGEE.

How was the experience?

Paolo: It was cool! More than a hundred trainers from very diverse backgrounds were a wonderful playground for all of us. We had the chance to experience trainings from both trainer and trainee side. We experimented, discussed, challenged each other. I could not really ask for more.

Mayri: The experience was one of a kind, especially with so many people from a wide range of countries and organisations. When talking to someone new, you never know what their story is, you only know that everybody who was there was a trainer. The days were rather long and intense, but filled with interesting content and discussions. The event gave me a lot, and, as Paolo said, I could not have asked for more.

Jorge: It was an amazing experience. I had the great opportunity to learn and be inspired by different trainers, coming from everywhere in the world. The schedule was quite intense, but we could still find some time to get to know some of the awesome people who were around. It was a great group of folks to talk to. I would love to come back to another edition [he smiles, ed.].

Noemi: It was my first time attending this international event. I was quite happy and proud to see so many familiar faces from AEGEE. I really enjoyed it, as the participants were coming from all over the world and having various backgrounds (students, representatives of youth organisations, professional trainers) made this experience quite a unique one. We had very good discussions and creatively inspiring training sessions in the modern buildings of Wrocław university. I was very happy to have a chance to take part in the Forum, where everyone was open and eager to spread knowledge and learn from each other.

Petra: Being part of the big trainers’ world was fascinating, impressive and inspirational at the same time. Everyone was hungry to learn new methods, tricks and practices. Sometimes I felt that training the trainer is like healing a doctor, a pretty hard, but not impossible task. I strongly recommend attending TsF at least once, it is a milestone in a trainer’s life.

How was its structure? Which sessions took place, what kind of skills were required, what was the outcome?

Jorge Miguel: The event lasted for two days and a half, plus an extra day prior to TsF, dedicated to an Open Training Day (OTD). During the OTD, on Thursday, many trainers delivered training sessions on different topics for local students, as well as other trainers participating in TsF, who wanted to attend those sessions. TsF started on Friday morning with an opening ceremony and team building activities, where the trainers participating in TsF reflected on their personal goals for TsF and set their mindset for the event. Then, for most of the remaining part of TsF, there were nine training sessions or workshops in parallel, among which the more than 110 trainers participating in TsF were distributed. There were more than 100 sessions in total, on a lot of different training-related fields. On Sunday, there was an Open Space where people could suggest new sessions to discuss, on topics they still felt necessary to address. Finally there was the closing of the event, with hopes that new editions of TsF will take place soon. In general, TsF was very diverse, with sessions of all kinds in parallel, trainers coming from different fields and organisations and with very different experiences. Some of them had thousands of hours of experience as trainers, while others were taking their first steps as trainers. Because of that, the outcomes are also very different, depending on each person, but for most, it was a boost of energy and ideas and an opportunity to develop trainers’ skills, discuss training-related topics, create connections with other trainers and think about future projects.

How important is non-formal education in a youth organisation?

Balázs: Everything we carry out in AEGEE is, at its core, based on non-formal education (NFE). We can learn a lot by doing. We can improve ourselves through the experiences we gain, in the form of developing our skills, competences and attitudes. Ideally, we also gain in-depth awareness about these processes and become capable of explaining why NFE, and especially informal learning, matters these days. You can read more about the topic in the “NFE Book” of AEGEE by clicking here or by directly approaching the AEGEE-Academy, our association’s pool of trainers.

Paolo: I am firmly convinced that non-formal education will be a big trend in the future and it will represent the avantgarde of learning processes and educational models. We have the chance to try, experiment and fail, in a way that a formal environment will never allow, and this gives NGOs like AEGEE a unique opportunity. I really hope that we will not miss it.

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

One of the aims of our organisation is to foster educating members able to think critically and outside the box, but at the same time to understand the political reality and society, therefore the importance of civic education. During the planning part of EPM Burgos in 2015, the idea to start a campaign to strenghten the teaching of civic education was first proposed and it later developed into the “More than education- European Citizens’ Initiative”. We spoke to Maria Maris, AEGEE- Cluj-Napoca and currently the CD assistant on communication, and she gave us a useful, clear and short guide to it. 

The AEGEEan: Why Civic Education?

Maria: For us, civic education means learning critical thinking, political participation and open-mindedness. Civic education is the attempt to teach and show people how the world works, so they can become active and responsible citizens. Also, AEGEE is doing non-formal civic education [she smiles, ed.]. Didn’t we become more active and responsible citizens because of AEGEE?

What is the European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) ?

The European Citizens’ Initiative is the 1st and ONLY tool for direct democracy in the European Union! ECI means collecting 1.000.000 signatures in one year throughout Europe from at least seven EU Member States. People have the chance to participate directly in the development of EU policies. With their signature, citizens call on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal about a certain topic – in this case improving civic education in the whole Europe!

Why did you decide to have this campaign?

To put it clear out there: civic education is the way to a functional democracy.

We strongly believe that a democracy relies, for its legitimacy, on active and responsible citizens. We all know that at the heart of democracy are people. This should make it clear that a democracy can only function and be successful if citizens are active and involved in their societies. Teaching civic competences at school is crucial for a democratic society.

Civic education in Europe is currently insufficient and incoherent. Therefore, teaching civic competences should be strengthened and coordinated throughout Europe.

That is why “More Than Education” calls on the European Commission to set up a long-term agenda for coordinating civic education among EU members states, create benchmarks, offer space for exchanging best practices, strengthen financial support programmes for consultation and networking projects in civic education policy, organise periodic evaluation and, all in all, support member states in their responsibility of providing civic education. Shortly: bring all EU member states to talk and work together on civic education and make civic education more popular in the EU.

And of course… Because it is awesome!

The idea to launch an European Citizens’ Initiative  was included in AEGEE’s Action Agenda during the European Planning Meeting in Burgos in February 2015. Civic education is one of the four focus areas of AEGEE and starting an ECI supports the aim of setting civic education on the political agenda at all levels.

Who is part of the task force?

We currently have a team of 20 people that work on different tasks and subteams. Maybe it is important to mention that besides external relations, PR, FR and so on we have the national coordinators. They are responsible for the strategy of collecting signatures, making new partners and recruiting and coordinating ambassadors for the ECI in their own country. Currently, we are looking for more national coordinators. If anyone is interested and want to have more information about it, please contact us at contact@morethaneducation.eu.

What can locals do to join this initiative?

Here you can find a useful document with all the guidelines for locals.

To sum up:

#WHAT – We want to put civic education on the European political agenda.

#CivicEducation – means learning the competencies, i.e. skills, knowledge and attitudes, required to be an active, democratic and responsible citizen.

#WHY – without education there is no real democracy.

#HOW – By collecting 1.000.000 signatures for ECI.

#ECI – The European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) allows one million EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal.

#WhatYOUcando!

#SIGN the ECI

#LIKE us

#Donate www.morethaneducation.eu/donate/

#Collect signatures!

#Promote the ECI in your local

#Be part of the ECI Task Force

#Be CIVIC and EDUCATED!

Written by Erika Bettin, AEGEE-Verona

The Comité Directeur 2014 – 2015 of AEGEE-Europe, also known as CD52, is back at the Brussels head office, ready to continue the implementation of their Activity Plan and the initiatives they are involved in. They will not be alone though, because they can count on the help of several home-based assistants, who will support the CD in some relevant areas, ranging from website management to data analysis, network development, policy monitoring and more. The AEGEEan is reviewing some of the priorities that the Comité Directeur will have throughout 2015 until the end of their term, which YOU can also contribute to!

The Strategic Plan, a “top priority”

The new Strategic Plan 2014/17 has just started this new term. Therefore, according to the CD’s Activity Plan, implementing the new Focus Areas in AEGEE will be “a top priority”. As youth unemployment is still on the rise in Europe, the Focus Area of Youth Employment will be one of the key issues of this current Strategic Plan, and the Comité Directeur plans to bring up the topic to the Network in several ways, such as the second edition of the Youth unEmployment project. Concerning Youth Mobility, a special focus will be drawn, especially after the deletion of the Visa Freedom Working Group (VFWG). Three CD assistants will work in close cooperation in order to review the guidelines as written by the VFWG and update them.

Moreover, AEGEE-Europe’s Policy Officers will have a very relevant role in the process, since AEGEE is going to have to define its position on the Focus Areas and do advocacy accordingly, after being officially established in the CIA at Agora Cagliari. The Action Agenda Coordination Committee (ACT) will also play a relevant part by ensuring the fulfillment of the Action Agenda 2014 – 2015, and will have a big involvement in drafting the following one at EPM Burgos in February.

Launch and implementation of “new” platforms

AEGEE’s Forum was re-established right after Agora Cagliari, which brought the Network to discuss  about which platform would be the best one in order to bring back discussions online in AEGEE. The Comité Directeur will continue the implementation and promotion of the Forum, as well as the Members’ Portal, which was officially launched at Agora Cagliari. Several projects and European bodies use it in order to share information about their work and involve their members.

Moreover, 2015 could bring the new Online Membership System to life, as a replacement of our current Intranet. According to the Activity Plan, the OMS is expected to be launched at the upcoming AgorAsturias. Moreover, the AEGEE Wiki will be developed, as an information database that will gather all kinds of information, from general information about AEGEE to specific working procedures.

Discussion about AEGEE’s organizational culture and structure

Now that the new AEGEE identity has been implemented as a way to present AEGEE externally, the current CD sees it’s time to focus on the internal structure of AEGEE and how the different bodies are connected with each other. Therefore, they have planned to consult the different European bodies about their needs and relations among them, and map them, as well as to start a discussion on its organizational culture.

Moreover, this year will see the follow-up of the introduction of the secretariat strategy. The Comité Directeur is currently researching the possibilities to outsource some of their current administrative tasks to the Secretariat and funding possibilities, in order to ensure professionalism and continuity in the organization.

Strengthening quality assurance and non-formal education

The impact measurement process was recently introduced to AEGEE, and the process of gathering data about the impact of several aspects of AEGEE’s work will be followed up with throughout this year. The same applies to the quality assurance of our events. Since the establishment of EQAC, the committee has constantly been improving and it will ensure that the quality of our events is properly monitored.

What’s more, the Comité Directeur will have a big involvement in the ongoing processes of the validation of non-formal education, with initiatives such as GR-EAT (which stands for “Guidelines for Recognition – European Advanced Tool”), a Life-Long Learning project, where AEGEE is one of the management partners. The COY Project, aimed at striving for the recognition of Youth Workers, is currently coming to an end, so AEGEE will follow up on this project, together with its partners. The recognition of volunteering will also continue, in order to ensure that volunteer work is valued and recognized.

Human Resources and on-line trainings

A lot of attention will be paid to the Human Resources status of AEGEE through initiatives like the Membership Growth Project, which aims to help antennae with their membership strategies in order to become more sustainable. Currently, the locals who will take part in the pilot phase of the MGP are being selected. AEGEE will also bring trainings to the whole Network, as the first webinars and online trainings for AEGEE members are currently being developed.

…and most importantly, involving YOU

These are only some of the things that will keep the Comité Directeur busy in 2015. However, their main priority is no other than to involve you in these processes! From project management opportunities, to helping them define the organisational culture of AEGEE, applying as a home-based assistant, supporting the discussions in the forum or taking part in the consultations about several advocacy processes and policy areas. There are several areas you can support the work of the Comité Directeur in, and AEGEE members are the ones who shape the organisation, so don’t be afraid to take an active role in defining it!

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

The Events Committee now has a new name: Quality Assurance Committee (Q.A.C.). This fits better with its role of improving the quality of the events that are organised by AEGEE locals. They also have a new team, the AEGEEan interviewed them on the recent changes.

AEGEEan: So, you are a new team. What are the roles of the members of the team?

Q.A.C.: Yes, a new team with new ideas and a new approach to the work! The team now consists of a speaker: Antonis Triantafyllakis (AEGEE-Heraklio); plus five Quality Assurance Responsibles: Patrick Scholz (AEGEE-Aachen); Hilde Lahaije (AEGEE-Utrecht); Margarita Simonova (AEGEE-Moskva); Réka Salamon (AEGEE-Aachen); and Andrew Bartolo (AEGEE-Valetta).

The Quality Assurance Responsibles have already split the AEGEE locals among themselves, in order to have a better system to keep track of events and to improve communication with locals. We are planning to create Facebook groups and have one representative from each local for bidirectional communication between locals and the Q.A.C. Our priority for now is to reach all locals and explain why we should focus more on “quality events” and how cooperating with us would have great benefits for them.

What are the reasons behind renaming the (former) Events Committee?

AEGEE means a lot of things for all our members, but for many it is a learning platform for gaining competences we cannot get elsewhere. The Events Committee’s role in this was not very clear to the Network. Non-formal education is an important aspect of our work as an organisation, but that has to meet certain standards. With renaming the Committee, we set a clear aim: we want to raise the quality of events  by putting more emphasis on educational content.

A better organised event with the right logistics and content will produce happier participants. Plus it will help keep a clear overview of AEGEE’s impact on its members and help us having a further recognition of non-formal educational tools, which is one of AEGEE’s greatest strengths.

How exactly are you planning to introduce this new system to the Network? Do you think the locals will be more interested in cooperating with the Committee this time?

We want to establish a constant communication with the locals and the Network Commission is already helping us with this. We are not here to annoy everyone with our forms; but more helping hands will result in making the organisation of events easier. The locals can contact us at any time with their proposed event and we are more than happy to:

1. Aid cooperation with another European Level body (especially in case of thematic events).

2. Help with the promotion of the event (we are thinking about an Events Newsletter).

3. Our guidelines and forms can make planning easier – so locals don’t have to start everything from scratch.

Will locals have to submit a forms and get “quality checked”? And how complicated is this new system going to be?

No more complicated than using Intranet… The locals have to submit the Assessment Form (which will become available on the Members Portal later). Once their event is approved, they can upload it on Intranet and the promotion can begin on EVENT-L  and other platforms. Once the event is over, locals should fill out an Evaluation Form to give us proper feedback on the outcomes which they can also use for an internal evaluation of the event.

Anything else you would like to share with the AEGEEan?

Yes, ‘Quality Indicators’ is just the fancy new term for ‘I can help you with that’. Check out the presentation of the brand new Committee and don’t hesitate to write to us any time.

Written by: Lia Tuska (AEGEE-Kastoria & AEGEE-Sofia)

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

Sustainable development… Green growth… Sustainability… The air is packed with sustainable buzzwords and it is hard to open a newspaper these days without finding an article on some sustainability topic. Regardless of the many empty uses ofthe word, it cannot be denied that sustainability is thé challenge of our generation, as was confirmed by over 40% of respondents in the recent AEGEE Survey on sustainability.

Photo by Mathieu Soete

Realising this importance, AEGEE chose Sustainability as one of its policy fields for the term 2012/2013. Within this complex field, focus is put on the subtopics of Education for sustainability and Sustainable entrepreneurship, while also paying attention to making AEGEE more sustainable in its day-to-day activities and projects.

Education for sustainability

An endless sequence of campaigns has had some success in raising people’s awareness about the major global and local sustainability issues. People around the world are familiar with the 2°C rise in global temperature related to climate change, and many know that a lot of our food is being wasted on the way from farm to fork. Any system of Education for sustainability (ESD) with a chance of success, however, should be developed through participation of all stakeholders, including students. This subtopic therefore aims at finding out the perceptions and demands of AEGEEans towards ESD, and its place in their education.Sustainable entrepreneurship

“Sustainable entrepreneurship” generates just over 100 million hits when googled, but what is it exactly? If used without any significant changes to the company policy, it becomes “greenwashing”, not only fooling customers in their search for more sustainable products, but also spreading doubt about the credibility of genuinely sustainable companies.

Map of survey responses

Put simply, a sustainable entrepreneur is an entrepreneur with the explicit objective of improving a social or environmental situation. 42% of respondents agreed that, eventually, all companies will have to become sustainable, so we better get started today. It takes more than just a good idea to build a company though,  and with only 12% reporting any experience with entrepreneurship, there is still much to learn.

This is where both subtopics intersect, providing skills and knowledge training to future entrepreneurs, and surrounding fresh start-ups with the right environment for growth and development. This subtopic looks into existing best practices on education and support of young entrepreneurs around Europe, and discusses possible ways of improvement.

My aim as Policy Officer is to bring the opinion of AEGEE to the policy-makers, while sharing opportunities for learning and action. But for this I need your input of course. So contact me at mathieu.soete@aegee.org to share your ideas and questions, or join the mailing list Sustainability-L to start discussing!

Written by: Mathieu Soete, Policy Officer on Sustainability, for the NetCom Times.

Last week, AEGEE-Europe was invited to join debates taking place in Grenoble, France. The event aimed to gather politicians, young people, citizens and experts on the topic of youth. In this context, I was invited to moderate a panel discussion on the topic of Higher Education in Europe, in which the Minister of Higher Education and Research of France was one of the panelists.

Moderating this debate proved to be extremely interesting and made me think about the place of education in Europe. I believe that AEGEE, as a student organisation, is expected to address this issue and to get involved in order to make sure that the development of a European Higher Education Area answers to the need of young people.

What does Europe have to do with education?

As you might know, education is a national issue. The European Union only has a complementary role in this and can advise the member states, without forcing them to any commitment. The EU budget for education is therefore very low, barely reaching 2% of the EU budget. A few years back however, the first initiative for a common area in Higher Education was implemented, well known under the name ‘the Bologna Process’. This initiative did not aim to harmonise national educational systems but rather to provide tools to connect them. The intention was to allow the diversity of national systems and universities to be maintained while the European Higher Education Area improves transparency between higher education systems and provides tools to facilitate the recognition of degrees and academic qualifications, mobility, and exchanges between institutions. What has been the real impact of the Bologna process on young people? Has it really made their mobility in Europe easier?

Apart from that, currently, education is one of the elements most discussed: while the Lisbon Strategy placed knowledge and innovation at the base of our society, there is still a lot to do in order to ensure a stable, innovative and dynamic European area, and in that context, the education of young people is one of the key elements which will influence it. However, there is currently a youth unemployment rate of 25% in Europe, and this situation has given rise to a lack of participation of young people in the society in general, visible in the low participation during elections.

Besides common challenges in European countries, there are also similar objectives in the field of education, for example increasing the number of young graduates, creating a more attractive knowledge centre, and solving the issue of discrepancy of universities with the labour market.

In this context, why not try to find common strategies to face those challenges?

Europe’s answer to education

The European Union is currently focusing on some specific aspects in the field of education, with the objective to create an attractive European area in the field of education and research.

On one hand, mobility is of course the field where the European Union is most active. We are the ‘generation Erasmus’, and many of us had the chance to study abroad for a certain period of time. We can say that mobility in the frame of education should be a right for young people. It is still not the case – access to Erasmus and other mobility programmes is very limited and connected to the countries of origin and the social background of participants.

One of the objectives I believe AEGEE should strive for, is the possibility for all young people to be able to study in any European country and university they wish, in order to be able to follow the best programme in the field of their interests. In this frame, it is necessary for Europe to be open and supportive, so that young people can get this chance. Indeed, not only does it help students to choose the best programmes in Europe, but it also provides them with an experience which goes beyond the knowledge they will acquire: studying abroad provides the opportunity to discover another culture, to learn a new language, to develop intercultural skills etc. Above all, studying in another European country considerably enhances our feeling of belonging to the European community, it brings Europe closer to us, and results in young people being more interested in Europe. AEGEE striving for European integration means to push for the European Commission to provide financial support and to make sure that mobility programmes for youth are accessible to everybody. Currently, the grants that are provided for a young person differ from one country to another, and in some countries, they even differ from one region to another. Young people do not have the same opportunities all over Europe, and the fact that parts of the grants are typically transferred only after their experience abroad also considerably limits the participation of students from a disadvantaged socioeconomic background.

Another element that was addressed during the panel discussion was the necessity to increase collaboration between universities, research centres and the business world. Universities are often criticized for providing young people with a diploma, but not with the competences that they need to join the labour market or to be an active citizen. For now, one of the greatest challenges of universities is the relevance of education and knowledge that they provide to young people, and whether it is adapted to the needs that young people have when entering the job market. Even if we must grasp education as a lifelong learning process, in the current context, the role of universities in preparing young people for the job market has to be scrutinised. Employers themselves stress that they prefer someone with more skills and fewer diploma to someone with two masters but who turns out to have no idea about the working environment or team work. In AEGEE, we always stress the unique role of non formal education and what being active in a youth organisation provides young people with, especially in the context of preparation in terms of skills, but also to understand one’s role in the society.

We should expect the education system to be a bit less rigid, and to introduce new methods, new forms of learning, which would provide young people not only with technical knowledge (of course needed), but also with civic competencies.

The European Union is currently pushing for more interactions among universities and the business world, which we find interesting, however, we need to make sure that the European specificity of education as a public service stays protected, not to transform it according to the US model, where the business world controls education systems.

But education should also prepare citizens, not just workers

Education and being a student is also about learning to become a citizen. Institutions seem to forget this sometimes, and see education only as tool for employment. However, we, in AEGEE, have the chance to be part of a youth organisation which enables us to experience democratic processes, to develop and raise our awareness about how the society works, the environment in which we live. AEGEE values learning to learn, and the need of young people to grow as citizens and to actively take part in their society. This is why I believe we should also encourage this process of participation to take place inside the universities themselves. If we want young people to become citizens aware of the opportunities they have to make their opinions heard, they need to be able to experience it within the universities already. Likewise and coming back to mobility, we can say that giving young people the chance to be mobile in Europe, will increase their awareness of the society in which they live, and will prepare better the citizens of tomorrow.

AEGEE’s role in this context is to represent the needs of young students in terms of education, to stress our wish to be able to study, work and live anywhere in Europe and to demand education to be addressed in a holistic perspective, giving young people not only skills for their future, but also citizenship education. Those are the values AEGEE strives for, and to reach this ideal, we need to make our students’ voices heard.