The learning community of tomorrow, what will it look like? The speed at which society has evolved in the last decades makes it difficult to conceive what might be happening in 10 years, let alone 20 or 50. But this is not enough to stop us from hoping for a better future. On the contrary, it seems the perfect time to design the society we dream of, and what role education will play in realising it! The LLLPlatform held its Annual Conference 2016 in Bratislava, on 31 May and 1 June. Gathering some 100 experts and practioners in education, the conference was the opportunity to share practices from all over Europe to learn from each other and build creative solutions. Followed by a Project Development workshop, it supported participants finding partners for projects aimed at meeting Europe’s most pressing challenges.
The conference, opened by inspirational speeches by Dr. Eva Gyarmathy and Kari Anttila, was organised around 5 workshops:
- A diverse community
- A digital community
- An knowledgeable community
- An integrated community
- A democratic community
The learning community cannot be imagined solely on the basis of what goes on in the classroom. Indeed, if the traditional space for learning is the classroom, this learning also takes place at home, outside school when taking part in activities such as sports, theatre, music…, and most of all, learning take place throughout life, long after we leave schools and all the way up to retirement. Learning is also highly dependent on the environment it develops in, meaning the built but also natural environment.
The recommendations formulated in each workshop were handed over to a group of architects who interpreted them on a maquette, presented to the audience in the final plenary. This novel way of looking at policy as integrated within a real environement, spurred the final discussions.
Partners and supporters
The Annual Conference 2016 “Imagining the learning community of tomorrow” was organised under the patronage of the Slovakian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
The LLLPlatform Annual Conference was organised with the support of the Slovakian Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport.
The Institut Français in Bratislava, whom we thank for hosting us in their central and historical location, for our General Assembly on 30 May 2016; the Faculty of Architecture, University of Technology of Bratislava, whom we thank for collaborating with us in building the model of our learning community of tomorrow, imagined by participants during the conference; the Goethe Institut in Bratislava who we thank for their support in communication and dissemination. Our local NGO partners, members of our members were the Centrum pre Europsku Politiku (CEP), member of EUNET and the Association of Adult Education Institutions (AIVD), member of EAEA, whom we thank for their involvement in the Conference.