NEW PARADIGM OF EDUCATION: EUROPEAN DIALOGUE

During two days in November last year, more than 50 young persons, expert speakers, professionals and journalists from different parts of the world gathered at Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris to discuss a new paradigm of education. The missions of the New Paradigm of Education forum, which was organized by the International Movement Youth Time, were to expand the youth’s possibility to play a constructive role in changing the educational paradigm and to initiate an open discussion on future education with both younger and older gen- erations. During the two days speeches were given, discussions were held with expert speakers and participants as well as project presentations by participants and peer-to-peer learning where people taught each other to knit, dance Greek dances and Chinese language.

«The first forum we organized because we wanted to have continuous work with real life meetings instead of only being an online platform», Julia Kinash says in an interview when asked what inspired the foundation of Youth Time in 2010. Julia Kinash is President of the International Movement Youth

Time and Editor-in-Chief of Youth Time Magazine, and has a major in Management from Moscow State Humanitarian University. «The Youth Time Magazine helps closing the gap between older and younger generations», Julia Kinash says and explains that Youth Time strives to help young people from different countries to realize their ideas. «Some have already fulfilled their ideas [which they wanted help with], which is very important», Vladimir Yakunin adds to the discussion.

Vladimir Yakunin is President of

Russian Railways, Co-President

in the Association Dialogue FrancoRusse and Founding President of the World Public Forum «Dialogue of Civilizations». Vladimir Yakunin states that «the rights of the younger generations are important to me, and I have noticed that the young generation is very eager to have friends in older generations, for support and discussion» and Julia Kinash adds that the older generation is of great importance for young people since the elders have gained a lot of experience throughout their life.

Someone who is eager to help the younger generations is Silvia Crocitta, who is a project manager in European Funding for Youth, Education and Culture as well as a volunteer at United Nations and an active member of the Erasmus Student Network. «I prefer to give my knowledge to youngsters», Silvia Crocitta says in an interview. «When I was young, I felt the need for someone to have my back, someone to provide me with different choices. Young people are helping themselves, for sure, but they still need frameworks and a way to implement their ideas.»

In terms of education, Silvia Crocitta believes that quality is of great importance. Youngsters need to be built into strong individuals, and teachers need to plan their education based on the needs of the students - not on the basis of a curriculum. Whether or not a curriculum is successful depends on its implementation, and Silvia Crocitta believes that quality is found in a paradigm of formal and non-formal education. «It is like a couple», Silvia Crocitta says. «They complement each other - one cannot be successful without the other.» we study. Adam Farnik mentions that it in the past was troubling for some universities connected to the Erasmus programme as they struggled with meeting the educational needs of international students. Today, it is not as troublesome and international students experience at least the same level of study at universities abroad. Studying abroad is also beneficial since it provides students with the chance to study different courses than the ones given at their home universities as well as the chance to experience a different way of studying.

But what is formal and non-formal education? Adam Farnik, President of Erasmus Student Network Czech Republic, explains formal, non-formal and also informal education and how they are included in education in his speech during a session on educational environment. Formal education is the courses which

The informal part is what we experience, Adam Farnik explains. Our learning is being boosted by experience in an informal way. «Coming here yesterday, they lost my luggage at the airport and I had to deal with that situation. I informally learnt from that experience, and Erasmus students experience things like that when being abroad». When it comes to the non-formal learning Adam Farnik brings up Erasmus in Schools as an example, a programme which gives Erasmus students the opportunity to meet locals in high schools by teaching about their country and language in a non-formal way, something which is appreciated

A Summary Of The Declaration

Education and State: Improve communications between state and youths, as well as policies that give equal opportunities for all people.

Education and Educational environment: Make educational sources accessible by all, at all times. Focus on soft, social skills, as well as cooperation in multi-mixed environments.

Education and Business: Improve commnications between education and business.

Education and Media: Involve youth more, while also putting heavier focus on education in media.

The declaration document can be downloaded at: http://youth-time.org/npe.

by the local students.

On the topic of the future of education Hrishabh Sandilya, Vice President of External Relations and Development at Anglo-American University in Prague, believes that education will be highly digitized. «Universities should add online education to the educational system since it gives students the option to pick-and-choose what they want to learn. More people will be able to study with education easily accessible on the Internet. Education is a public good and people should be able to study.» However, online learning cannot replace the connection between a teacher and a student since a social environment is not provided by computers. «University teaching is all about the relation between the teacher and the student». Therefore, a human component is very important to keep in the digitized education, Hrishabh Sandilya states.

An issue with online education rather than acquiring traditional degree is how one evaluates online and technology based learning. «How do you make sense of online learning as an employer?» Hrishabh Sandilya asks in his speech, and says that online learning enables people to create their own degree which is interesting for employers, but that MIT and Wikipedia does not provide an education - only knowledge. And that is why we have to be able to assess online learning in some kind of way.

During the discussion on the subject, one participant says that we already are overwhelmed with information online, and «if there will only will online learning in 50 years, I want to die before that!», which shows how important it is to make sure that online learning meets a certain standard of quality. Another participant’s response to that is «what about those 2 billion who cannot access education? For them, online learning would be very useful». A third participant thinks that online learning will revolutionize how we think. «I don’t need all my knowledge in my mind - it is in the cloud!»

Apart from digitalization, Hrishabh Sandilya believes that learning in the future will become more and more problem based, rather than solution based, and that sustainability is a key factor for lifelong learning.

Another subject which was discussed during a roundtable was education in media and one speaker was Ellen Pinchuk, Director of International Projects at Mikhailov and Partners. Ellen Pinchuk says that media only portrays education as becoming worse. However, she believes that the role of media is not to tell people that «we have an issue».

Rani Singh, BBC Broadcaster and Senior Writer at Forbes India, agrees that «education in media is not sexy», and states that journalists have to refocus. There are wonderful things happening in schools, Rani Singh says, and not only disasters. One comment on the subject from a participant is that students should show the media, through social media, what they want to hear about. «Anyone can be a reporter and initiate discussions», the participant says.

Thoughts and comments said during the forum were recorded and collected in the Paris Youth Declaration «New Paradigm of Education», which was then signed by forum participants.