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Upholding the Right to Education in Times of Crisis in Europe
The world is faced with ever more complex, heterogeneous and constantly evolving emergencies and crises. The consequences of such events (e.g. conflicts, natural disasters, climate change-induced crises, epidemics, etc.) are severe, and the impact on education is no exception, ranging from damage to school infrastructure, physical and psychological vulnerability of learners, reduction in the number of teachers and education staff, to widening gender disparities or overall system dysfunction. In these critical situations, access to and the pursuit of quality education are at stake.
In response to these challenges, a special working group was set up in 2022 in Europe, under the auspices of the Council of Europe's Intergovernmental Committee on Education (CDEDU) as the SDG4 regional coordination mechanism for Europe to address the issue and provide countries with a specific tool to empower education stakeholders to provide inclusive and equitable quality education, regardless of the nature of the emergency and/or crisis. Against this backdrop, a toolkit providing guidance on how to operationalize such an approach was developed by the Council of Europe and made available: the "Education in times of emergencies and crisis toolkit - EDURES".
Starting in February 2024, the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region in Italy was the first to pilot the toolkit. We interviewed Villano Qiriazi, Director of the Education Department at the Council of Europe, to capture his vision on the role of the toolkit in improving policy-making to ensure quality and inclusive education in times of emergency and crisis in Europe, which can be scaled up to address the challenges of education in emergencies faced by other regions.
What are the key features of the EDURES toolkit?
The toolkit promotes a holistic understanding of the role of education in community resilience and robustness. On the one hand, it enables public authorities to assess the resilience of education systems under stress and to identify relevant actions to improve it. On the other hand, the competencies and assets of education systems should complement resilience-based contingency and strategic planning at the community level. Ultimately, this would allow for greater collaboration between all the different community resilience actors, including those from education systems and civil society.
The Council of Europe’s approach to education in times of emergencies and crisis aims at strengthening and streamlining the role of education for community resilience and robustness through the Six Principles for Building resilient educational ecosystems: 1) strengthening governance; 2) ensuring continuity; 3) expanding the role of education; 4) increasing accessibility; 5) fostering co-operation, and, 6) increasing efficiency.
The EDURES toolkit was presented at the 26th Council of Europe's Standing Conference of Ministers of Education, which took place at the organization's headquarters in Strasbourg on 28-29 September 2023 under the Latvian Presidency and is designed to support the implementation of the Ministers’ Resolution on Education in times of emergencies and crisis.
Why do you believe the toolkit is a game-changer to enhance countries’ readiness and responses to crises?
The toolkit will accompany educational authorities and stakeholders from mapping the overall context to designing a specific configuration of action most proper to the educational ecosystem analyzed and this is what makes this work extremely innovative and relevant.
At the Council of Europe, we see those efforts as our contribution to the SDG4 and aim to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.
With this work we are also glad to contribute, as Region Europe, to the implementation of the political orientations stemming from 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit, including the Youth Declaration on Transforming Education, and the Council of Europe’s and its Member States' contribution towards the implementation of the Common Agenda and a specific initiative "Education in Crisis Situations: A Commitment to Action" thereto.
Once again, the Council of Europe’s work on Education in times of Emergencies and Crisis re-confirms the willingness of our Member States to work together to transform education systems, so they are able to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from crises, while enabling all crisis-affected children and youth, including refugees and stateless populations, to continuously, equitably and safely access inclusive, quality, safe learning opportunities.
How do you plan to roll out use of the toolkit in European countries?
The Toolkit is currently being piloted in Member States, under the guidance of the CDEDU, before culminating in a designed digital tool.
About a dozen of Member States were interested in piloting the toolkit. However, the initial piloting stage will be carried out in two or maximum three Member States in 2024, namely, Albania (state and city level) and Italy (regional level).
As part of this initial stage, needs and existing good practices to ensure quality, inclusive education also in times of emergencies and crisis that can be integrated in the piloting activities, will be identified and compiled.
On that basis, all the materials needed for the piloting will be designed and developed (e.g., information materials, detailed training curriculum, etc.), including a communication strategy to maximize impact and dissemination of the piloting activities.
Creation of a beta version of EDURES Digital Platform that will host EDURES materials, results of all the piloting activities undertaken in 2024 and the EDURES Digital Benchmark is also envisaged.
Further on, a series of up to ten workshops with education policy makers and principal stakeholders will be organized to bring the theoretical framework into practical application, fostering collaboration among stakeholders and empowering educational leaders.
The workshops will be structured to align with EDURES specific implementation steps, ensuring a comprehensive and hands-on exploration of the toolkit's capabilities. At the end of each workshop, participants will be asked to compile short surveys to share and assess their experiences. Finally, a more articulated data collection tool will be disseminated at the end of the training process, to measure overall impact.
We stand ready to share our work with the UNESCO community with a view to the upcoming events this year, notably the meeting of the SDG4 High-level Steering Committee Leaders’ group in June and the Global Education Ministers’ Meeting in November.
