European Awards for Lifelong Learning recognise outstanding mobility projects
The 2008 European Awards for Lifelong Learning were given on the 13th June 2008 to fifteen outstanding projects in the field of education and training funded by the European Union; the focus this year was on "quality in mobility". The prizes were handed over by the European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, Ján Figel', and the Slovenian Minister of Education and Sport, Milan Zver, at a conference in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
15 winning projects from 13 Member States have demonstrated how mobility can broaden horizons, enhance skills and create opportunities. These European success stories have been awarded with gold, silver and bronze prizes for mobility actions in one of five categories: Comenius for school education, Leonardo da Vinci for vocational education and training, Erasmus for higher education, Grundtvig for adult education, and 'Languages'. This year particular attention was given to mobility actions for teaching staff and trainers.
The five gold-winning projects include:
- A partnership between a Latvian and a Czech school, in which pupils translated songs into their partner's language and rehearsed together.
- The Intensive study programmes of the Portuguese Instituto Politécnico de Tomar and its partner universities.
- A staff exchange scheme between a Danish fire services provider and its UK counterpart.
- Religious Diversity and Anti-Discrimination Training coordinated by the Centre Européen Juif d'Information in Brussels.
- Lingu@net Europa Plus, a London-based project that guides learners in a choice of over 3,700 online learning resources.
Mobility will remain at the very centre of the Lifelong Learning Programme, the EU's flagship funding programme in the field of education and training. New actions are already planned for the coming years:
- "Comenius Regio" is a new action for partnerships between local and regional school authorities, to be launched in 2009.
- From 2010, "Comenius Individual Pupil Mobility" will enable secondary pupils to spend from 3 months up to one school year at a Comenius partner school abroad.
- In addition, new types of mobility will also be available under the Grundtvig programme for adult education.