ECSWE NewsFlash10 July 2012

Newsflash Contents
• Waldorf Education in Peru
• ECSWE and the new EU Stakeholder Group
• News from ELIANT
• Jean Monnet - 2013 - your ideas please

Waldorf Education in Peru
At the invitation of Waldorf colleagues and the Ministry of Education of Peru Christopher visited Lima at the beginning of June. He gave a talk and had conversations with the Waldorf Kindergarten teachers in the city, spoke to the teachers of the three Waldorf schools at the premises of the Anthroposophical society, gave advice to the initiative group of a new pioneering school, held the keynote talk and conclusion at a public conference in Colegio Waldorf Lima, was interviewed for a prominent newspaper, gave a lecture to the assembled primary school head teachers of the metropolitan area (population 10 million) and another to the officials in the Ministry who are responsible for ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) and primary education of the country. The country is in the throes of redesigning its curriculum for the early years and primary age children and has been requested by the World Bank to pay more attention to the emotional development of their children. The visit, which was funded by private donors in Lima, was to help develop SEE (Social and Emotional Education) in mainstream education, the value of an arts-rich curriculum  and also to show what a positive role Waldorf could play in the educational life of the country. At the same time it was possible to give the Alliance for Childhood a strong and enthusiastic start that will be working against the increasing tendency to bring academic pressure into early childhood.

ECSWE and the new EU Stakeholder Group
While attending the workdays and AGM of EUROCHILD (25-27 June) in Brussels Christopher also spent a day at the new Stakeholder Group that has been set up by DG Education and Culture of the European Commission. ECSWE has been arguing for over a decade that civil society has a role to play in developing educational policy at European level. Unfortunately up to now it has been viewed as the prerogative of national governments. However this DG has taken the plunge and alongside the experts selected by national governments to work on ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care) and ESL (Early School leaving.)  The stakeholder group will be meeting twice a year to consider these and other priority issues within the 2020 strategy. The group consists of around 50 selected NGOs, INGOs (e.g. UNESCO. OECD) and Foundations ( e.g. Bertelsman Foundation) and membership is by invitation only. So ECSWE and Alliance for Childhood – European Network are now permanent members and look forward to their voice being more clearly heard in this arena.

News from ELIANT
Christopher participated in the ELIANT core group meeting in Brussels on the 14th June where a future strategy was developed and advocacy events were planned for the coming year. The “Ecology of Childhood” is one of the main areas of activity and ECSWE is building up a consortium of NGOs to work further on this theme for the near future. The ELIANT newsletter goes out to over 400.000 recipients in English and German and other languages are in the pipeline.  ELIANT has moved into an office in Rue du Trône, Brussels;  www.eliant.eu

Jean Monnet - 2013 - your ideas please
In the event of an agreement in Ljubljana to go ahead with a Monnet bid for 2013 the office have started preparations for a package of actions that we hope could be as successful as last year’s bid. Anybody with innovative ideas is welcome to contact us.