{"id":18278,"date":"2013-06-28T19:56:59","date_gmt":"2013-06-28T17:56:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/?p=18278"},"modified":"2013-06-28T19:56:59","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T17:56:59","slug":"lobbying-with-aegee-24h-in-the-life-of-a-policy-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/2013\/06\/28\/lobbying-with-aegee-24h-in-the-life-of-a-policy-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Lobbying with AEGEE – 24h in the life of a Policy Officer"},"content":{"rendered":"

The work of a Policy Officer involves a lot of reading \u2014 lengthy study and survey reports, lofty European Commission publications, and repetitive online discussions \u2014 but every now and then something more exciting comes along as well. One of those moments was the first lobbying meeting of the Dutch Youth Council on Education for sustainability, followed the next day by a busy policy debate at the European Parliament on Entrepreneurship skills. A brief account of 24h in the life of a Policy Officer\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>For the second year the <\/span>Dutch Youth Council<\/a> (NJR) is trying to focus the bulk of its lobbying efforts towards a single aim. Last year, their board member for advocacy, Gabe worked on study financing, and this year his successor, Felix got the task to work on Education for sustainability. This topic was proposed some months ago by the Dutch AEGEE locals who, following AEGEE\u2019s Strategic Plan, recently became an NJR member.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course \u2018Education for sustainability\u2019 is a hopelessly broad field, so the aim of the meeting at the NJR headquarters in Utrecht is to help Felix narrowing this down to a workable lobby point. Felix and Gabe and some of their colleagues had prepared four possible scenarios to bring sustainability into the Dutch education system, going from working on the learning outcomes to creating sustainability for university students.<\/p>\n

Two rounds of discussion with board members and representatives of member organisations direct the topic towards developing sustainability projects within the vocational education system. A challenge since many member organisations \u2014 including AEGEE \u2014 have fewer links with this part of the student population, but also a huge opportunity, as sustainability has long been considered as something elitist.<\/p>\n

Early next morning, I\u2019m on my way to the European Parliament in Brussels for a policy debate organised by EUCIS-LLL, the European Civil Society Platform on Lifelong Learning<\/a>. Together with CD-member Beata Matuszka, I\u2019m presenting AEGEE\u2019s experience with entrepreneurship education, drawing lessons from Europe on Track\u2019s discussions with young people and the previous editions of the European School on Entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n

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The meeting is hosted by the Austrian MEP Heinz Becker (EPP), who immediately frames the debate by referring to the European Commission\u2019s <\/span>Social Business Initiative<\/a>: \u201cThe main objective of social business is to generate a significant impact on society, the environment and the local community.\u201d After interesting presentations from <\/span>EfVET<\/a> (on teaching young people entrepreneurship skills through their regular teachers) and YFJ (on the results of their <\/span>study<\/a> into the impact of non-formal education on youth employability), and a testimony from a former participant of the <\/span>Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs<\/a> programme, we are up.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Other contributions before the floor is opened to questions include people from DG Education and Culture (\u201cThe methodologies needed to teach entrepreneurship skills are very much based in non-formal education\u201d) and DG Enterprise and Industry (\u201cEntrepreneurship is a key competence for everybody, it\u2019s not just how to start a business\u201d), as well as a rapporteur from the EESC refocusing the discussion on the main goal of education: to create free citizens with a critical mind who can function fully in the society.<\/p>\n

Strong comments were made by SYNTRA<\/a>, pointing to the fact that we are fighting \u2014 and are thus risking to lose \u2014 a war on two fronts (namely by using a confusing terminology and by frightening teachers with new topics to teach), by EFIL<\/a> on extending the debate to entrepreneurial knowledge and attitudes, and OBESSU<\/a> stressing the danger of focusing the education system too strongly on following the job market \u2014 a concern also heard in Zagreb during Europe on Track<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MEP Becker\u2019s closing question whether students know about social entrepreneurship offered the opportunity to put in a quick point on Education for sustainability as well: \u201cStudents don\u2019t know about these valuable types of entrepreneurship, just like they know little about social or sustainability issues. To change this, a deeper reform of education is needed, beyond the contents of entrepreneurship education.\u201d Now let\u2019s hope that\u00a0 he will take all of our comments with him!<\/p>\n

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Written by\u00a0<\/em>By Mathieu Soete, Policy Officer on Sustainability<\/em><\/p>\n

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Pictures credit of:<\/em><\/p>\n

Hans Kreutzer<\/p>\n

EUCIS-LLL<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The work of a Policy Officer involves a lot of reading \u2014 lengthy study and survey reports, lofty European Commission publications, and repetitive online discussions \u2014 but every now and then something more exciting comes along as well. One of those moments was the first lobbying meeting of the Dutch Youth Council on Education for sustainability, followed the next day… Read more →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":18282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[7,1044],"tags":[1034,803,719],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18278"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18303,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18278\/revisions\/18303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zeus.aegee.org\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}