Inclusion Initiative for Lifelong Learning
Inclusion's journey started with an inspiring seminar
The first Inclusion Seminar - 'Think! Open your mind...' in Helsinki gathered nearly 60 participants from the 13 partner countries on 11 June 2010.
Kursat Levent Egriboz, Lifelong Learning Programme Director from UK National Agency (ECOTEC) opened the Plenary session by representing the Inclusion Initiative ambitions to make the Lifelong Learning Programmes more open to all.
In short Inclusion activities consist of identifying the patterns of under-representation, gathering transferable examples of good practice, and celebrating examples across the LLP and influencing the key players.
Mr. Levent Egriboz also introduced "Europe 2020: A strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth" as consistent frame for Inclusion initiative.
Geraldine Libreau from the European Commission, DG Education and Culture handled the reality of equal opportunities and inclusion at the European level. Facts show low participation rates of disadvantaged groups in early childhood education and adult education. In Europe of ageing population, increased migration flows, digital gap and globalization and economic crisis, there are great expectations on the Inclusion Initiative to identify the under-represented groups and find the ways to tackle inclusion and facilitate access to education and training.
Most of the seminar day was used in intensive workshops dealing with the importance of inclusion, barriers and solutions for effective inclusion, and LLP in helping to tackle inclusion. The workshops discussed lively the ways of realizing inclusion in various country and LLP contexts.
All in all the seminar was carefully planned and well organized. Even experienced conference-goers got new ideas worth trying in their future work. It seemed that at least some of the participants would have liked to use one more day in knowledge and experience sharing.
Get involved in Inclusion!
The Inclusion project Homepage offers several ways for dialogue and information sharing around the topic of Inclusion. You may:
- check and announce on Events calendar
- order The Inclusion newsletter
- participate Inclusion in Twitter
- explore the selected case studies
- view Useful documents and Useful links.
And if you have been involved in an inclusive project, Rebecca Fothergill is looking forward to hearing from you at Rebecca.fothergill@ecotec.com.
