Lifelong Learning Platform | LLLP - European Civil Society for Education

Active citizenship

The Platform believes that education is key to foster democratic and civic participation at local, national, European and global level. Learning to become an active citizen is about knowledge and attitudes, which requires the use of methodologies that involve learners actively in their own learning. They should be encouraged at all levels and in all sectors of education.

Curriculum should be competence-based, aiming to equip learners with democratic attitudes and social, civic and intercultural competences, as key competences for life. They represent an essential gear which any citizen should have in today’s complex and fast-changing world. We also need to build learners’ capacity to think critically and creatively, to explore new ways of acting and making informed and adequate decisions.

Civic and social participation are the fundament of European values and democracy. The Platform welcomed the fact that citizenship education became a highlighted priority of the Education and Training 2020 work programme of the Commission following the so-called Paris Declaration. It is a member of the dedicated Commission Thematic Working Group set up to share practices/knowledge between Ministries of education. It calls for concrete implementation measures at EU and national level.

The Lifelong Learning Platform is currently running a working group “Europe 2020 – Policy coherence” that is monitoring and contributing to various policy developments and is promoting the exchange of good practices amongst its members in this area.

Resources

  • Civil Society Europe analysis reveals significant differences in the level of transparency of the Permanent Representations to the EU

    Civil Society Europe is making public an analysis of the level of transparency of all Permanent Representations of Member States to the European Union. Such analysis takes into consideration the disclosure of the Permanent Representation internal structure – including civil servant names and contact details – and of the list of meetings held between ambassadors and interest representatives.
    The analysis shows significant differences in the level of transparency of the Permanent Representations. While some of them make all of the information […]

  • Skills, lifelong learning and democracy workshop during the EESC Civil Society Days 2023

    The EESC Civil Society Days 2023 featured three days of debates and exchanges around the link between civil society organisations and democracy, and the need to ensure an active, engaged participation to face the current societal challenges. 
    LLLP, alongside the European Association of Institutes for Vocational Training (EVBB) and Cooperatives Europe hosted the workshop “Skills and Lifelong Learning for Democratic Societies” to highlight how the life course perspective, education, training and transversal skills are the way forward for […]

  • The Lifelong Learning contribution to tackling fake news

    On September 7th, and under the title “Attention Fake! Strategies against populisms in Europe ”, experts discussed online disinformation in an event organized by the Lower Saxony State Representation. Sitting on the panel were Prof. Dr. Monika Oberle, Professor of Political Science and Political Education at the University of Göttingen, Brikena Xhomaqi, Director of the Lifelong Learning Platform and Dr. Florian Hartleb (Tallinn), consultant on digitization in Germany, lecturer and book author. The discussion was moderated […]

  • Job Bridge Award – An EU-wide competition on validation of competences in volunteering

    Validation of non-formal and informal learning (VNFIL), the process that consist in the identification, documentation, assessment and certification of competences, is high on the agenda of the Lifelong Learning Platform. For that reason, LLLP partnered with 7 other organisations in the European Project “Job Bridge for volunteers” (2018-2020) to develop the capacity of volunteer-based organisations to assess the competences of their volunteers as well as their learning needs and progress.

    The applications are now open for […]

  • COMANITY, a new programme for youth and social inclusion

    For two years, the Lifelong Learning platform cooperated with 8 organisations (university, research centers, municipality, social cooperative, NGOs) from across the EU to develop a new inclusive programme for youth workers and young people, the COMANITY programme. As the European project is coming to its end and because it was such a great and successful programme, we want to give it a legacy. That’s why we are launching this call […]

  • EVENT REPORT – SKILLS FOR THE FUTURE OF YOUTH WORK

    On November 13th, LLLP with the support of COMANITY project partners organised an EU Round Table on the very timely topic of ‘Skills for the Future of Youth work‘ in Brussels (agenda). It was the COMANITY project’s final conference. The event was therefore also a celebration of two years of fruitful collaborative work between the nine organisations that composed the partnership. Over 60 participants from across the EU attended and actively contributed to the discussions. 

    See the photos of the event here

    Joe […]

  • Register to the LLLWeek19!

    The LLLPlatform is absolutely delighted to announce the dates of the 9th edition of the Lifelong Learning Week, which will be held in Brussels on December 2-6th!

    This year it will be dedicated to “Learning Democracy, Values and Participation”! Debates will focus on the role of civil society organisations working in education to foster democracy: the ways and the places we learn about our society and the key place of common values in education!

    We are going to be having debates […]

  • Five takeaways from the LLLP Annual Conference 2019

    The Lifelong Learning Platform’s Annual Conference took place on 19-20 June in Brussels, the perfect place to take stock of the EU elections and assess the role education will play in the future of Europe. It gathered stakeholders from all education sectors and interests, tackling together the topic of “Learning democracy, values and participation: the added value of lifelong learning”. A very dynamic discussion saw the light, and there was general concordance on some key issues. 

    1. Our democracy needs all […]

  • DIMELI4AC project concludes its research on digital media literacy in schools and plans the next steps

    DIMELI4AC partners met in Hannover on July 11-12 to wrap up the results of their first nine months of collaboration. After conducting extensive research on the state of digital media literacy in four countries, it was time to evaluate the work done so far and plan the next few steps ahead.

    DIMELI4AC is an Erasmus+ KA2 project which aims to promote the development of digital media literacy and critical thinking skills among students aged 10 to 15 with the […]

  • Global Campaign for Education

    The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) is a civil society movement that promotes and defends education as a basic human right. Among our members, ESU campaign and advocate at the international, regional and national level to put pressure on governments and the international community to deliver the right of everyone to a free, quality, public education.

    The GCE movement was founded in 1999, in the build-up to the World Education Forum in Dakar, to provide a platform to unify and coordinate civil society voices […]

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