The year 2021 marks the start of a new enabling framework for Education and Training to achieve the European Education Area by 2025, as well as of the renewed Digital Education Action Plan and therefore, an opportunity for Europe and Member States to reflect and build capacities to achieve its goals.

However, Europe and its Member States face difficulties with citizens’ engagement in policy-making because of a lack of trust, knowledge and/or a lack of social dialogue. Policy making lacking citizens’ engagement produces policies distant to the very issues they are attempting to work with. This is, subsequently, affecting the quality and efficiency of public services such as education and training.

How can we promote EU cooperation in education, training and lifelong learning in national contexts? How can we plant the seed for the creation of a national lifelong learning platform in order to build bridges between sectors? What steps need to be taken to realise the full potential of a lifelong learning approach?

These are the questions to be tackled in the Lifelong Learning Platforms pilot activity: the Lifelong Learning Lab – National Training for Education Stakeholders. With this programme, LLLP seeks to keep the momentum of EU cooperation to assess EU citizens’ capacity to participate in policy-making, suggest solutions and break silos in the education sectors. Further to this, and following the policy recommendation in its Feasibility study, LLLP would also like to explore the possibility of implementing lifelong learning platforms within national contexts across the EU.

It is our belief that Lifelong learning is one of the key policy tools available to us as we deal with the economic and social fallout of COVID-19 – and should be considered with due regard.

LLLP will be focusing these efforts on the Portuguese context as a case study to learn from and share best practices in the field of decision making and agenda setting. This will carried out with the support of the Portuguese Presidency and other EU actors.

The goals will be pursued through a new two-day event during which LLLP will take participants from all over Europe through a wide range of topics, spacing from EU cooperation in education and training, to EU decision-making processes, and from civil society engagement to national contexts.

Registration for the pilot event is now open!

Dates: Tuesday, 1 June: 15.00 – 18.00 CET & Wednesday, 2 June: 10.00 – 13.00 CET

More information on the event to be found here