Recap of Policy Event in Brussels: Innovating European Education, Open Schooling as a Boost for Europe’s Skills
With the goal to transform the approach to STEAM teaching and learning in Europe, the Make it Open project in collaboration with the Schools as Living Labs (SALL) project and the Open Schooling together (OStogether) network, recently hosted a thought-provoking policy event in Brussels. The OStogether network is a consortium of +13 Open Schooling projects, uniting over 50 organizations, and is leveraged to communicate Open Schooling initiatives.
The aim of this event was to bring together policy makers and experts in Open Schooling principles to spark discussion around innovating European school education systems. In the context of the European Year of Skills, this gathering brought together advisors in the field of innovative science education, a rare occasion to harness the knowledge and experiences accumulated over the years in Open Schooling. This event served as a benchmark to explore how these insights can shape policies for the future of European school education.
Photograph: High-level panel: policy recommendations from Open Schooling initiatives
Discussions were led by Maria Zolontosa (Project Manager) and Maya Halevy (Director) from the Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem, other experts in the debate included Pavlos Koulouris, Senior Researcher at Ellinogermaniki Agogi; Stephanos Cherouvis, Senior Project Manager at Ecsite; Annalisa Addis, Project Manager and Research Associate at The Lisbon Council; Marta Romero, Director of the International Project Office at the University of Jaen; and Ale Okada from the Open University.
The debate began on the topic of policy makers openness to the Open Schooling principles, and willingness to adapt this approach. The discussion shifted towards strategies to successfully implement mainstream Open Schooling, with the challenges and barriers outlined. A detailed summary of the discussion can be found here, written by the CONNECT project.
Overall, it was an inspiring event that sparked a powerful discussion on the ways to reshape the future of Open Schooling learning ecosystems.
