ESU attends summer camps and trainings

BRUSSELS – Representatives of the European Students’ Union attended a couple of summer camps held by national unions of students in Italy and Finland. These events were excellent platforms for student representatives to meet, spend some time together and get to know each other.

During two weeks in July in Italy, student reprsentatives from all over Italy were invited to the locality of Paestum. Elisabeth Gehrke, ESU’s Chairperson, and Fernando Miguel Galán Palomares, ESU’s Vice-Chairperson, attended this event and participated in several debates together with other guests at the camp and Italian policy-makers. Around five hundred people from local students’ unions in Italy got the opportunity to meet their colleagues during this event.

This summer camp was organised by Unione degli Universitari (UdU), Italian ESU full member, in partnership with Rete degli Studenti Medi, the Italian students’ union for secondary education level.

The Union of Students in Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (SAMOK) held its summer seminar on 8 and 9 August 2014 to kick-start the year with its local member unions. Erin Nordal, ESU’s Vice-Chairperson, attended the event to present its policy on the Bologna Process, as adopted at the 66th Board Meeting of ESU this spring.

During her presentation, Nordal talked about the structural changes that ESU wants to see implemented to reinvigorate discussions in the Bologna Process and strengthen member states’ efforts in ensuring that they follow-up on their commitments.

Nordal also presented ESU’s priorities for the upcoming ministerial conference of the Bologna Process to be held in 2015. Among the presented priorities, was to follow-up on ESU’s work in revising the European Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance of Higher Education, giving more leverage to issues such as student-centred learning. ESU’s priorities for the future of the Bologna Process were also discussed as well as a strategy on the social dimension and lifelong learning that makes sure that countries take responsibility for access to higher education.

ESU was very happy to get the opportunity to participate in these events and to get to know better the opinions of these national and local unions of students on priorities in higher education.

From 5 to 7 September 2014, ESU will also join the Training Stage event organised by the national union of students in Spain, CREUP, in the city of Toledo. The training is divided into three different parts. The first one, concerns education in Spain. The second one, will be on quality assurance which will also include a training session for their pool of quality assurance experts. The last part will be on the Bologna Process following the economic crisis and new reforms.

ESU will take an active part in discussions on quality assurance as part of CREUP’s training, with the main focus on students’ role in quality assurance at the European level. It will also discuss how elements for student participation have been developed during the implementation of the Bologna Process.

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For more information, please contact:

Elisabeth Gehrke, ESU Chairperson: +32/479.591.499 // elisabeth@esu-online.org or Robert Hlynur Baldursson, ESU Communications Manager: +32/473.669.894 // robert@esu-online.org