Inter Alia’s Strategy for Education | 2024-2026
Inter Alia perceives education as the collective learning spaces that involve diverse methods and approaches for providing and co-creating knowledge. These spaces incorporate processes of questioning dominant knowledge, building skills and critically analysing information, values, beliefs and habits. Education is a unique experience that can both liberate and oppress. In order to advance towards Inter Alia’s aim of an inclusive and assertive European civil society, education is central to our vision and actions. We support learning experiences that reinforce values, beliefs and habits towards more critical, conscious, self-reflective, cooperative and empathetic members of the community.
On 14 December 1960, UNESCO adopted the Convention against Discrimination in Education. This was the first international agreement entirely dedicated to education as a fundamental human right. While all UN member states formally endorse and celebrate the Convention, the way it is operationalised is problematic in most cases. With a few exceptions, national education systems fail to create a level playing field for participation, and to enable learners to apply acquired knowledge for the benefit of themselves and their communities. Besides, the bulk of formal education curricula also reflects the presence of the nation state as a dominant narrative and political praxis, along with the failings it provokes for the openness and inclusiveness of the learning process.
Methods
Inter Alia’s strategy for education aims to enable learners to put in practice all their previously acquired knowledge and experiences, through the formal education system, in a non-formal way, in line with their needs and aspirations. We create spaces of mutual learning and sharing where a continuous two-way process takes place: one that offers participants new learnings and mobilises them to co-create new knowledge; and another that enables reflections and improvements in Inter Alia’s pedagogical approach. We support personal and collective educational changes through the design of a process that is flexible enough to respond to complexities and uncertainties, embrace diverse cultures, and take into account cross-disciplinary approaches for the effective sharing and exchange of knowledge. Most importantly, we reflect critically on what we know and what we don’t know we know. In this way, we aim to engage in a process of unlearning about aspects of the contemporary world that perpetuate existing power relations, inequalities and hierarchies.
Inter Alia’s educational activities, under the Roots School of Critical and Explorative Learning, will take place on three levels:
- Carrying out ad hoc activities such as training courses, capacity building activities, and online and offline workshops, in the context of transnational projects;
- Establishing a yearly curriculum on political education offered by experts from different fields, institutions, sectors and countries;
- Offering a transformative learning experience to activists, graduates and civil society professionals from around the world once per year.
Strategic objectives
Offering cutting-edge political education: Political education in its diverse forms constitutes the focal point of Inter Alia’s work in the field of education. We aim to push the boundaries of participants’ thinking, abilities and imagination in order to foster a global society committed to the well-being of both people and the planet. We integrate critical theory with real-world experiences through a multifaceted methodology. Our curriculum blends expert lectures, debates, workshops and experiential learning sessions. To add depth to discussions and provide a well-rounded understanding of the respective themes, we will continue involving speakers from our network, including leading thinkers, seasoned activists and professionals. Alongside this, one of our key objectives is to amplify our activities’ collective educational impact through encouraging mutual learning among attendees.
Involving learners, particularly young learners, that struggle to find their place in their social and professional contexts: Inclusion in education is about working WITH and learning FROM the diversity of learners, as every small or bigger failure to apply inclusivity only perpetuates and reinforces the existing system of unequal access to education. As education systems across the world fail to involve a number of marginalised groups and individuals, Inter Alia will aim to respond to the needs of the least empowered first, through tailor-made programmes and a variety of subjects.
Inclusivity also refers to the parties engaged in the learning process. We believe that to reach the full potential of an educational venture and ground it in a social context, it is essential that all interested parties (e.g., learners, educators, policy makers, parents, employers) are invited to, informed of and included in its design, decision making and implementation.
Building skills and attitudes for a collaborative society and inclusive labour market: The application of non-formal education with a focus on the development of soft and transversal skills (communication, creative thinking, teamwork, self-motivation, risk-assessment, conflict resolution) are both an aim and a tool due to the openness of the method and the richness of its potential. In addition, through this approach we aspire to accommodate different learning attitudes and non-conforming behaviours (according to the formal education system). Moreover, we occasionally organise team building activities for employers and employees and research their attitudes and perceptions towards work. Through this process we aim to offer creative approaches and solutions to challenges connected to employment, work and labour.
Mainstreaming the process of educational programmes design that puts the learner at the centre: Educational opportunities offered by Inter Alia result from learning needs analyses and are designed to adapt to change and diverse circumstances. In building and implementing its educational programmes, Inter Alia collaborates with various actors at different levels such as schools, universities, civil society organisations and educational authorities. Through this process, along with different research activities, we aim to understand the needs of participants while continuously reflecting on the needs of the educator. Thus, we aim to offer learning opportunities that are relevant and useful for both. At the same time, activities are designed to foster reflection and be open to adjustment according to the learning environment and its dynamics.
Innovation in education should coexist with the principles of sustainability and democracy in order to promote progress and well-being. We recognise that the increasing complexity of our systems requires certain skills development to adapt to these changes but we also stand critically towards these systems. Our educational approach nurtures the skills of learners and educators which support social innovation and convivial technologies that foster a more participatory and democratic culture. This implies processes of individual and collective reflection on ethical, social, ecological, and political aspects of these technologies, in order to support meaningful, fulfilling lives and increasing well-being for all on a healthy planet. In this way, both educators and learners are able to position themselves confidently and fruitfully within the uncertainties of the contemporary world and adapt to changing needs of learners, on the one hand, and to conditions for education providers, on the other. Our approach nurtures the skills of learners and educators which support innovation, while fostering reflection on its ethical, social and political aspects and externalities.
Connecting learners across borders: Although the educational needs of learners are often very specific, and differ from one system or community to the other, Inter Alia’s international outreach and involvement contributes to the sharing of experiences and practices from other regions of the world. In that regard, we aim to continue the process of exchange across countries, continents and cultures, thus adding value to already existing methods and practices.
How to meet the objectives of the strategy:
- Design training programmes viewing all participants as carriers of several different identities (often controversial to one another) which should not be assumed, and should be ideally explored and unravelled;
- Promote methods of non-formal learning within the formal education system via the involvement of teachers and other actors from the formal system in Inter Alia’s training programmes;
- Approach, actively involve and connect educational institutions, and other education providers, together with (potential) learners in order to establish common ground;
- Focus on the development of political education programmes where experience is valued and, along with a spirit of exploration, experimentation, and community development, results in the acquisition of life skills.
- Promote a transformative approach to learning that involves critical reflection on the educational process, the content and methods, which ultimately aims for the active empowerment of the learner and political praxis.