2022
Participation in a ministerial videoconference on the situation in the Ukraine. Measures to be adopter or already adopted to support the influx of refugees.
Situation in Ukraine Language support: Ukrainian children and young people of school age who do not speak the language of instruction attend language learning courses or language learning classes. In order to meet the additional need for teachers for language learning classes, staff members who still have time resources and are interested have been asked to contact their providers. For staff members who do not yet have the necessary qualifications, further training will be organised in the short term and a new edition of the training in German as a Second Language will be organised in cooperation with the TU Dortmund in the autumn. Pupil transport: The German-speaking Community will provide pupil transport for pupils arriving for the first time if required and within the framework of existing possibilities. Translation service: The social translation service Traduko will provide translators for the Ukrainian language to the head teachers on request. Socio-emotional accompaniment: Kaleido East Belgium already has services to accompany refugees and those affected. The service is currently working on further measures. Not only refugees, but also East Belgian parents, pupils and teachers can make use of Kaleido's accompaniment and counselling. Teaching materials: The Media Advisory Service of the AHS has compiled educational material on the war in Ukraine that teachers can use. The material can be found on the websitewww.medien-fachberatung.be. The Institute for Democracy Education has also compiled an up-to-date collection of information on the war in Ukraine: Info-Integration is the official counselling centre for integration, migration, flight and asylum and offers materials for schools as well as animations on topics such as "human rights" and "flight and asylum". Childcare: The government is prepared to issue exemptions to increase the intake capacity of existing childcare structures from 0-12 years in the short term if needed. It is also currently being examined whether childcare can be set up in the reception centres to enable mothers to go to the authorities. "As the refugees are not subject to any obligation to register, we are not in a position to make contact with them. It is therefore important that the parents or host families proactively contact the schools so that we can educate the children," the minister concludes.
Cooperation with external partners
Minister President Oliver Paasch and Minister of Education Lydia Klinkenberg met the South Tyrolean Regional Councillor for Education Philipp Achammer and the Regional Councillor for Health Thomas Widmann for a virtual exchange on 3 February. Central topics of discussion were the shortage of skilled workers and the South Tyrolean scholarship system for health professions. The Province of South Tyrol and the German-speaking Community of Belgium are linked by a long-standing cooperation based on numerous commonalities: both parts of the country are German-speaking language minorities in their own country and pursue similar goals in educational and cultural matters. The government of the German-speaking Community and the provincial government of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano would like to continue to learn from each other and work together on solutions to challenges such as the shortage of skilled workers and the promotion of multilingualism. Oliver Paasch and Lydia Klinkenberg also used the exchange to find out from Ministers Achammer and Widmann about the scholarship system for health professions, which is already being practised very successfully in South Tyrol. The German-speaking Community had already declared last year that it wanted to introduce a scholarship system. The aim is to have a system like the one in South Tyrol, which is designed in such a way that students of certain fields of study receive a scholarship, provided they commit themselves to working in the region for a fixed period of time. According to Minister-President Oliver Paasch, the intention is to continue working intensively on the concept of the scholarship system for East Belgium in the coming months.
2021
Cooperation with OECD for the project Gesamtvision
The government of the German-speaking Community has embarked on the large scale exercise “Gesamtvision Bildung”. The aim of “Gesamtvision Bildung” is to improve educational opportunities and the performance of the education system as well as to ensure educational equity in the long term by adapting to the cultural, economic and technological challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. Based on a comprehensive diagnosis, the current and future fields of action of the education system will be identified by the end of 2021. Based on a solid inventory, the strategic goals will be defined and prioritised. All findings will flow until end of 2022 into an implementation plan that will show the perspectives for the education system until 2030 and beyond. In order to supplement the opinion survey conducted in 2019 with a scientific analysis of school resources, the Government of the German-speaking Community signed a cooperation agreement with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in December 2020. By December 2021, the OECD will conduct a scientific analysis of the East Belgian school system. Using objective and international comparative data, a team of experts will examine how equal opportunities the school system in the German-speaking Community is and what effect the resources used have. The pandemic-related developments and needs as well as the findings from the first stage of the diagnostic phase are taken into account here. The results of the analysis, in combination with the findings from the intensive participation process, will form a solid basis for the development of an overall vision for education in the German-speaking community.
2020
The Osnabrück Declaration was agreed by EU stakeholders at a ministerial virtual meeting on 30 November in the context of the German presidency of the European Union. The Declaration paves the way forward for vocational education and training subsequent to the Riga conclusions of 2015. Policy actions for the period of 2021-25 are set out which support the EU's Council recommendation on vocational education and training for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience. Vocational education and training is fundamental in developing the skills necessary for individuals and societies to recover from the coronavirus pandemic and to support the digital and green transitions to facilitate economic growth and innovation. Partnership with employers and trade unions is recognised as fundamental component in fulfilling the Declaration's objectives. The ETF will support the implementation of actions in the Osnabrück Declaration in the EU's candidate countries working closely with its sister EU agency Cedefop which will support implementation and undertake monitoring in the EU member states. Both institutions will report annually to the EU institutions.
The main areas of the Osnabrück Declaration are:
1. Resilience and excellence through quality, inclusive and flexible VET
2. Establishing a new lifelong learning culture – relevance of continuing VET and digitalisation
3. Sustainability – a green link in VET
4. European education and training area and international VET.
On 8 November 2019, Minister Harald Mollers, together with his fellow ministers responsible for higher education in the Benelux countries, and with their counterparts from the Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, signed the Declaration of Intent on automatic mutual recognition of higher education diplomas. The signing took place in the margins of the Council of Education Ministers of the European Union in Brussels.