Brussels, 19 April 2011 // The European Youth Forum brought together experts in Quality Assurance (QA) from different fields, European and global institutions, education stakeholders (families, teachers, students, youth) in an experts Conference on QA in Lifelong Learning to exchange expertise on the topic and explore the potential of QA to facilitate connection amongst different Lifelong Learning providers.
The European Youth Forum and its Member Organisations have long been engaged in the debate on recognition of Non-Formal Education and have actively contributed to the knowledge and legislative developments in the area of lifelong and life wide learning. In believing that quality and education always go together, and that youth organisations are key providers of quality education, the European Youth Forum organised this Experts Conference to exchange good practises looking beyond Non-Formal Education. By gathering around the table all different stakeholders, the Conference aims at seeing how different providers can work together to develop standards in quality assurance mechanisms for Lifelong Learning.
In this framework, the European Youth Forum launched the first Quality Assurance Network in Non-Formal Education, as a follow-up of the Pilot Project carried out in the past two years. The Network is to be build with a participatory process together with other organisations throughout 2011-2012 and aims at increasing the quality and recognition of Non-Formal Education in Europe.
“Youth organisations today are already quality providers of NFE,” affirms Peter Matjašic, President of the European Youth Forum, “through establishing a mechanism of quality assurance we aim at improving this quality, but also at communicating it effectively to young people and to other stakeholders: parents, institutions, formal education and other lifelong learning providers. Quality education is a right and youth organisations lead the way in ensuring that all education fields offer this.”
The European Youth Forum concluded the event with the launch and presentation of the Non-Formal Education Network website (www.nfenetwork.eu). The online platform is intended of being a space to gather expertise and to facilitate capacity building of youth organisations. The website will also be the place where all stakeholders can find all the information on Non-Formal Education offer provided by youth organisations and on how they guarantee quality to young people.