ESU advocates for students as full partners in governance at a ministerial meeting
YEREVAN – The European Students’ Union demands that students are not viewed as passive consumers and advocates that students must have a word on every aspect of governance. This argument was repeatedly defended at the last regional meeting of ministers of education that took place in Armenia on 17 and 18 October, co-organised by the Ministry of Education and Science of Armenia, the Council of Europe and ESU, under the aegis of the Armenian Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
Students’ participation was a core theme at the meeting and led to intense debates among the delegations that expressed in a final declaration their commitment to facilitating student participation in higher education governance.
Self-certification and implementation of national qualifications frameworks were other two subjects that were broadly discussed. Students’ participation was also a part of those discussions and it was clearly understood that students must be involved at all levels of development and implementation of national qualifications frameworks.
The final declaration – adopted by the national delegations of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation and Ukraine – pledged a commitment of national delegations to enhance student centred learning and expressed their willingness to strengthen transparency by providing more information on their higher education systems, qualifications and policies. The participants in the meeting were evidently satisfied with the results of sharing experiences and good practices.
Several delegates of ESU addressed the conference in Armenia as well as national student representatives from the Armenian National Student Association (ANSA), that is a member union of ESU.
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For more information, please contact:
Rok Primozic, ESU’s Chairperson: +32/479.126.390 // rok@esu-online.org or Robert Hlynur Baldursson, ESU Communications Manager: +32/473.669.894 // robert@esu-online.org
The European Students’ Union, headquartered in Brussels, is the umbrella organisation of 47 national unions of students from 39 European countries. ESU represents and promotes the educational, social, economical and cultural interests of students at the European level. Through its member unions, ESU represents over 11 million students in Europe. To find out more about ESU, follow us on Twitter @ESUtwt, check out or Facebook page or visit www.esu-online.org. ESU celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2012.
