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Resolution 2283 (2019)
Education and culture: new partnerships to recognise personal development and competences
1. Twenty-first-century societies
need people with creative and analytical thinking, critical understanding, social
skills, tolerance, intercultural awareness and the ability to handle
conflict. Education bears the greatest responsibility in enabling
young people to acquire these essential competences as part of their
personal development, democratic consciousness and employability.
Access to culture, arts and culture education and participation
in cultural life are crucial in achieving this result.
2. The Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the recent Council of
the European Union Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences
for lifelong learning (2018/C 189/01) to include “cultural awareness
and expression” as a key competence for lifelong learning, as well
as the decision by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development (OECD) to add creative thinking to the Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) tests as from 2021. These
new targets now need to be worked into comprehensive education programmes
accessible to all.
3. In this context, the Council of Europe Framework Competences
for Democratic Culture present a comprehensive set of values, skills
and attitudes for an appropriate participation in democratic societies,
and the Indicator Framework on Culture and Democracy offers a unique
tool for assessing and optimising cultural policies and for examining
links between culture and democracy.
4. The Assembly reiterates its appeal to European governments,
already expressed in Resolution
2123 (2016) on culture and democracy, to allocate the
same level of sustained investment to education and cultural activities
as to other areas crucial to Europe’s global economic competitiveness
and stability.
5. The recent Resolution
2270 (2019) on the value of cultural heritage in a democratic
society recommends that European governments direct culture and
heritage into education in more effective ways, and revise education
curricula and vocational training in order to create better synergies
between the arts, the economy, technology and science and to stimulate
interaction between technologies, creative arts and entrepreneurship.
6. All children, regardless of their artistic skills and abilities
or economic status, should be entitled to receive arts and culture
education of a high standard. The Assembly notes with concern however
that, despite the successful advocacy to include arts as part of
education policy, this has not led to wide-scale implementation of
quality programmes for teaching the arts and teaching through the
arts in schools.
7. The implementation of quality arts and culture education largely
depends on teachers and creative professionals, but they often lack
appropriate in-service professional training. Digitalisation creates
new possibilities for teaching the arts and culture and through
the arts and culture, which cannot be fully exploited without the
adequate preparation of teachers, creative professionals and school
leaders.
8. However, quality arts and culture education is not the responsibility
of individual establishments or institutions, it requires cross-cutting
partnerships involving responsible State institutions, schools, communities,
arts organisations and increasingly also industries and businesses.
There is a strong need for sustainable and project-based partnerships.
9. Non-formal and informal learning play an equally important
role in the development of essential cultural and creative competences.
However, the knowledge, skills and attitudes developed while practising
extra-curricular activities go mostly unrecorded and unrecognised.
Enhanced co-operation between different learning settings and the
official recognition of their respective value for personal, social
and civic development would encourage new learning approaches and
initiatives.
10. Consequently, the Assembly would welcome the creation of a
Europe-wide tool for recognising young people’s competences acquired
while participating in artistic, cultural and creative activities
in a variety of learning contexts.
11. In the light of the above, the Assembly recommends that the
member States of the Council of Europe:
11.1. integrate creative competences and cultural awareness
into formal education systems, in line with the recommendations
of the European Reference Framework of Key Competences for Lifelong Learning,
to foster the creativity of young people and their innovation potential
in the digital era;
11.2. design modern, quality arts and culture education programmes,
both for teaching the arts and artistic expression and for using
the arts as a cross-sectoral pedagogical tool in teaching other
subjects, taking into consideration the recommendations of the “Seoul
Agenda” of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO);
11.3. promote inclusivity in providing quality arts and culture
education, paying specific attention to children and young people
from underprivileged socio-economic backgrounds, with the aim of encouraging
active citizenship, openness, curiosity and critical thinking, building, inter alia, on the Council of Europe’s
Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture and the
Indicator Framework on Culture and Democracy;
11.4. support innovation in education and develop novel approaches
to teaching and learning; review the professional training systems
for teachers and creative professionals, encouraging well-adapted
in-service training and mobility for professionals in teaching arts
and culture and offering special training for teaching other subjects
through arts-based practices;
11.5. foster and financially support sustainable, long-term
partnerships between schools, communities, creative industries,
cultural institutions, businesses and employers to offer young people
new opportunities to develop their competences in cultural awareness
and expression.
12. The Assembly invites the European Commission to:
12.1. introduce a stronger and more
inclusive link between fostering European identity through cultural diversity,
creativity and mobility and providing quality education in the arts
and culture in school programmes within its Creative Europe programme
(2021-2027); this would meaningfully contribute to building the
European Education Area by 2025;
12.2. support and stimulate cross-sectoral and cross-border
co-operation between culture, education and other policy and professional
sectors, as well as innovative partnerships involving State institutions, schools,
communities, organisations and private businesses at European Union,
national and local levels;
12.3. develop a competence framework for “cultural awareness
and expression” (European Union key competence No. 8 for lifelong
learning), which should include, inter
alia, a frame of reference for teacher competence development
within the context of pedagogical innovation, as well as provisions
for assessing creativity and cultural competence;
12.4. reflect on the creation of a Europe-wide tool to recognise
the competences developed by young people while participating in
artistic, cultural and creative activities, in collaboration with
the Council of Europe and relevant professional associations, within
the framework of its Creative Europe programme (2021-2027) and more
particularly within its Work Plan for Culture 2019-2022 (under “Young
creative generation” and “Citizenship, values and democracy”). This
tool should serve the purposes of:
12.4.1. recording the
competences (knowledge, skills and attitudes) articulated in the
European Union lifelong learning key competency “Cultural awareness
and expression” which young people acquire by participating in statutory
and/or non-statutory artistic, cultural and creative activities,
to certify the acquisition of these competences;
12.4.2. encouraging young people’s participation in innovative
partnerships in order to promote and further integrate cultural
awareness and expression throughout policy development in Europe;
12.4.3. ensuring that European values are better understood and
valued by the young generations.