The emergencies and crises facing our societies are complex, heterogeneous, and constantly evolving. The consequences of such events (e.g., conflicts, natural disasters, climate change, epidemics, etc.) are severe, and the impact on education is no exception, ranging from damage to school infrastructure, physical and psychological vulnerability of learners, reduction in the number of teachers and education staff, to widening gender disparities or overall system dysfunction. In these critical situations, access to and the pursuit of quality education are at stake.
In response to all these challenges, a special Focus Working Group was set up in 2022 under the auspices of the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee for Education (CDEDU) to address the issue and provide Member States with a specific tool to help develop principles and a participatory methodology to empower education stakeholders to provide inclusive and equitable quality education, regardless of the nature of the emergency and/or crisis.
The group came up with 6 principles to support the assessment of the resilience of education ecosystems from a multi-level governance perspective and a toolkit to promote and facilitate their implementation in Member States. Following the recommendations and the guidance of the FWG, a toolkit providing guidance on how to operationalise such an approach has been developed by the Council of Europe and will be made available to Member States.
The FWG was led by the Head of the Education Department Mr. Villano Qiriazi and Senior Project Manager/Co-ordinator Mr. Gennadiy Kosyak and included several Member Stated Representatives, as well as experts from ISIG.
