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Paris Youth Dec­la­ra­tion “New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion”

Paris Youth Dec­la­ra­tion “New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion”

Youth Time Inter­na­tional Move­ment
Novem­ber 26 – 27, 2013
Paris, France

The Youth Time Move­ment Mem­bers,
Recall­ing pre­vi­ous Youth Time projects, dur­ing which we decided to orga­nize in 2013 Paris Inter­na­tional Youth Forum “NEW PAR­A­DIGM OF EDU­CA­TION: EURO­PEAN DIA­LOGUE” at the high­est pos­si­ble level, would like to

1. express pro­found grat­i­tude to the JSC “TransCon­tainer”, Asso­ci­a­tion “Dia­logue Franco-​Russe”, Transsoyuz char­ity, Fed­eral Pas­sen­ger Com­pany, Con­ser­va­toire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM), Youth Asso­ci­a­tion for a Greater Europe for pro­vid­ing all the nec­es­sary sup­port;

2. endorse the out­come doc­u­ment of the Youth Time Inter­na­tional Move­ment Forum on the future of edu­ca­tion, enti­tled “Paris Youth Dec­la­ra­tion New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion”, annexed below.

Inter­na­tional Youth Forum “New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion: Euro­pean Dia­logue”

Paris, France
27 Novem­ber 2013

DEC­LA­RA­TION

1. PRE­AM­BLE

1.1 We, the par­tic­i­pants of the Inter­na­tional Youth Forum “New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion: Euro­pean Dia­logue” (NPE), gath­ered in Paris, on Novem­ber 26 – 27, 2013 for a 2-​day youth event orga­nized by the Youth Time Inter­na­tional Move­ment which brings together young peo­ple and youth lead­ers from around the world to dis­cuss rel­e­vant youth issues, sum­ma­rize our work in the form of a dec­la­ra­tion for the ben­e­fit of the future of education.
1.2 By rec­og­niz­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of edu­ca­tion, neces­sity of bring­ing con­sid­er­able changes into the cur­rent edu­ca­tional par­a­digm and bal­anc­ing the ratio of for­mal and non-​formal edu­ca­tion, the needs of young peo­ple dic­tated by the cur­rent nowa­days trends in mod­ern soci­ety, and con­sid­er­ing the sta­tis­tics and research done, Youth Time made a com­mit­ment in 2012 to encom­pass all areas con­nected to the issue of edu­ca­tion; pro­vide more detailed research and lis­ten to the voices of the youth through­out the row of spe­cial events all over the world, incor­po­rat­ing the theme of edu­ca­tion into var­i­ous dis­cus­sions and debates. This theme has been rec­og­nized to ful­fill the needs of young peo­ple. Hence, an inter­ac­tive dis­cus­sion on this topic has been very impor­tant to form, edu­cate and increase aware­ness on the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties stand­ing in front of con­tem­po­rary edu­ca­tion, cur­rent demands of the glob­al­ized world and chang­ing con­di­tions and envi­ron­ments at dif­fer­ent lev­els of soci­ety that we represent.
1.3 There­fore, with the above men­tioned theme, par­tic­i­pants and all rel­e­vant par­ties present (the young peo­ple, youth lead­ers, pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor, acad­e­mia, inter­na­tional, regional and national orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tives) gath­ered to call for action on the issues of edu­ca­tion, its role in the lives of all the peo­ple and its influ­ence on the future of our soci­eties. Hav­ing in mind the very ori­gins of the need of being edu­cated that come from the evo­lu­tion of the human soci­ety, bas­ing on the knowl­edge and approaches devel­oped through­out the his­tory of the mankind, this out­come doc­u­ment is expected to enhance youth con­tri­bu­tion towards pro­mot­ing a more con­struc­tive look at edu­ca­tion and its future.
1.4 After thor­ough delib­er­a­tions through projects, events and dis­cus­sions, ple­nary ses­sions, work­shops, we, the par­tic­i­pants, have put together this doc­u­ment with the fol­low­ing rec­om­men­da­tions that we strongly feel ought to be imple­mented by all the involved par­ties to ensure that the rights and inter­ests of all stake­hold­ers of the edu­ca­tional processes that are tak­ing place in for­mal and non-​formal areas and for­mats, such as, but not lim­ited to, state insti­tu­tions (states), busi­ness (cor­po­rate sec­tor and com­mer­cial edu­ca­tional estab­lish­ments, pri­vate endeav­ors), NGOs, peo­ple of all ages, are acknowl­edged and protected.
1.5 Bas­ing on the results of the long-​term work, research and dis­cus­sion process of Youth Time mem­bers, a net­work of young activists social work­ers and entre­pre­neurs, media pro­fes­sion­als and researchers from more than 30 coun­tries who have taken it as their mis­sion to craft a new future and con­tribute to the imple­men­ta­tion of pos­i­tive sce­nar­ios, we con­sider edu­ca­tion as one of the fun­da­ments on which our com­mon future should be based.
The guid­ing prin­ci­ples for this dec­la­ra­tion were based on the fol­low­ing objectives:
to ini­ti­ate an open pub­lic dis­cus­sion in which the vision of young peo­ple on edu­ca­tion of the future will be presented;
to define basic require­ments from dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers of education;
to for­mu­late the desir­able image and struc­ture of edu­ca­tion and mod­ern edu­ca­tional process;
to intro­duce youth as an active part in co-​designing the edu­ca­tion of the future;
to think not only about for­mal edu­ca­tion in insti­tu­tions, such as schools and uni­ver­si­ties, but also focus our atten­tion on edu­ca­tion as an inte­gral part of life (as a con­tin­u­ous lifestyle), a con­stant process, which result is not only imple­ment­ing knowl­edge and skills in pro­fes­sional careers, but also value-​forming process, personality-​forming, and, there­fore, a society-​building process;
to raise an infor­ma­tive aware­ness on the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of edu­ca­tion amongst all the inter­ested par­ties and con­se­quently admis­sion to deci­sion mak­ing amongst youth; to empower the youth with means of com­mu­ni­ca­tion to help in reach­ing other par­ties con­nected to the dis­cussed issues;
to fos­ter youth energy towards imple­men­ta­tion of ideas brought for­ward by the young peo­ple for the ben­e­fit of the societies;
to address the chal­lenges and deter­mi­nants of edu­ca­tional sys­tem and edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ment faced by youth today;
to assure respect, pro­tec­tion and ful­fill­ment of the right to free edu­ca­tion, for­mal and non-​formal for/​among the young people;
to clas­sify the role and the con­tri­bu­tion of the stake­hold­ers towards improv­ing and sus­tain­ing resource­ful and mean­ing­ful edu­ca­tion as a basic tool for sustainability; to form and advance national, regional and inter­na­tional poli­cies empow­er­ing young peo­ple with the deci­sion mak­ing tools and pos­si­bil­i­ties for the present and future; to inte­grate net­work­ing, col­lab­o­ra­tion and coop­er­a­tion both ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal between pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors, civil soci­eties, youth orga­ni­za­tions and other par­ties to address the issue of education;
to ensure recog­ni­tion of the edu­ca­tion as a neces­sity for a sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of the world.

2. REC­OM­MEN­DA­TIONS

2.1 Edu­ca­tion and State
2.1.1 To for­mu­late, review, imple­ment and eval­u­ate the role of a state in chang­ing the face of edu­ca­tion in times of glob­al­iza­tion, mobil­ity and mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism of the post-​colonial world.
2.1.2 To ensure the deliv­ery of youth’s mes­sage to the state and involve­ment of the youth in the deci­sion mak­ing processes.
2.1.3 To develop aware­ness among politi­cians of the impor­tance of the education.
2.1.4 To pro­vide resources to all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers that will help in reshap­ing the face of education.
2.1.5 To estab­lish acces­si­ble plat­form for com­mu­ni­ca­tion both ver­ti­cal and horizontal.
2.1.6 To form poli­cies that will pro­vide an equal oppor­tu­ni­ties for all people.
2.1.7 To encour­age cre­ation of part­ner­ships between all coun­tries, focus­ing on the role of rela­tions between devel­oped and devel­op­ing states.
2.2 Edu­ca­tion and Edu­ca­tional Environment
2.2.1 To col­lab­o­rate with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers in order to deliver equal edu­ca­tional oppor­tu­ni­ties for all.
2.2.1.1 With the empha­sis on pro­fil­ing the cur­ric­u­lar to indi­vid­ual needs (needs of com­mu­ni­ties, also local, regional, national ones).
2.2.2 To estab­lish a free and open edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ment, acces­si­ble to all at all times.
2.2.3 To pro­vide resources for tight­en­ing con­nec­tions between providers of edu­ca­tion and var­i­ous orga­ni­za­tions and com­pa­nies that give oppor­tu­ni­ties for devel­op­ing prac­ti­cal skills through vol­un­teer­ing, prac­tices and/​or intern­ship programmes.
2.2.4 To sup­port and adhere to the human-​oriented edu­ca­tion, pro­vid­ing bal­anced devel­op­ment of a whole per­son (mind, body, and heart).
2.2.4.1 To imple­ment an approach towards real­iza­tion of person’s poten­tial, not just the acqui­si­tion of knowledge.
2.2.5 To sup­port and adhere to the sustainability-​oriented edu­ca­tion, pro­vid­ing devel­op­ment of envi­ron­men­tally respon­si­ble society.
2.2.6 To encour­age edu­ca­tors to once more become men­tors, and role-​models for their pupils (with remem­ber­ing about the impor­tance of cross-​generational approach).
2.2.7 To strengthen soft, social skills among edu­cated youth with empha­sis on coop­er­a­tion in multi-​mixed envi­ron­ment to ensure under­stand­ing in spite of dif­fer­ences (of age, sex, nation­al­ity, cul­tural back­ground etc.).
2.2.8 To estab­lish edu­ca­tional cen­ters which will be also serv­ing as the source of devel­op­ment for the whole com­mu­ni­ties (with regard to a cul­ture, and a bal­ance between human– and indicator-​oriented devel­op­ment, ways of think­ing etc.).
2.2.9 To cre­ate critically-​thinking and inde­pen­dent edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ment in order to ensure the global soci­ety is able to nav­i­gate wisely in an over­whelm­ing amount of infor­ma­tion avail­able for cur­rent and future generations.
2.2.10 To reach a bal­ance between the issues of the access to edu­ca­tion and the qual­ity of edu­ca­tion, ensur­ing that both are tended appropriately.
2.3 Edu­ca­tion and Business
2.3.1 To estab­lish stronger con­nec­tion and viable ways of com­mu­ni­ca­tion between edu­ca­tion and busi­ness.
2.3.1.1 Busi­nesses should be in a close coop­er­a­tion with the edu­ca­tional insti­tu­tions, invest­ing in the poten­tial employ­ees in order to bet­ter adapt the out­comes of edu­ca­tion to labor mar­ket demand.
2.3.2 To diver­sify oppor­tu­ni­ties given by the busi­ness for students.
2.3.3 To ensure cre­ation of cur­ric­u­lar involv­ing prac­ti­cal skills, accord­ing to the needs of poten­tial future employers.
2.3.4 To encour­age dia­logue between busi­ness and other stake­hold­ers.
2.3.4.1 To estab­lish two ways com­mu­ni­ca­tion between busi­ness and youth to rec­og­nize and under­stand needs of all the par­ties.
2.3.4.2 To estab­lish two ways com­mu­ni­ca­tion between busi­ness and states to ensure proper devel­op­ment of the education.
2.3.5 To fos­ter syn­ergy and col­lab­o­ra­tion, and strengthen the efforts of both labor mar­ket and edu­ca­tion for future coop­er­a­tion and active par­tic­i­pa­tion in needed reforms.
2.3.6 To rec­og­nize and com­mu­ni­cate the need of cre­at­ing social and edu­ca­tional aware­ness pro­grammes inside of media structures.
2.3.7 To encour­age all the rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers to open ways and plat­forms for coop­er­a­tion pro­filed accord­ingly to the needs of all the parties.
2.4 Edu­ca­tion and Media
2.4.1 To for­mu­late, review and eval­u­ate the con­tem­po­rary role of media in edu­cat­ing the public.
2.4.2 To rec­og­nize and com­mu­ni­cate the need of cre­at­ing social and edu­ca­tional aware­ness pro­grammes inside of media structures.
2.4.3 To involve youth in the deci­sion mak­ing processes in order to push for­ward the analy­sis of the cur­rent trends, to drive the agenda, draw atten­tion not only to the daily sto­ries, but also to the not obvi­ous tec­tonic shifts in the area of education.
2.4.3.1 To rein­vent the role of reporters as indi­vid­u­als who pro­mote actions of social aware­ness and human-​centered education.
2.4.3.2 To change the image of edu­ca­tion deliv­ered by the media to the pub­lic, enhanc­ing its attrac­tive­ness and importance.
2.4.4 To re-​focus the inter­ac­tion between media and edu­ca­tion stress­ing the role of media as a chan­nel of trans­mit­ting the information.
2.4.5 To pro­vide resources and tools to all rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers for proper usage of media for the ben­e­fit of education.
2.4.6 To estab­lish acces­si­ble plat­forms of edu­ca­tion in con­tem­po­rary and future media, to ensure the sym­met­ric com­mu­ni­ca­tion between those who teach and those who are learning.

3. EMPOW­ER­ING THE YOUTH

With its work Youth Time Move­ment is seek­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties for empow­er­ing youth, and mak­ing the voice of cur­rent and next gen­er­a­tions to be heard. To achieve this goal we plan to cre­ate a think tank which would col­lect inde­pen­dent opin­ions of young peo­ple on the sit­u­a­tion of edu­ca­tion. This way pro­vid­ing pro­fes­sional help and advise for every unit, work­ing (or plan­ning to work) in the field of edu­ca­tion. We clearly see that expand­ing the youth’s pos­si­bil­i­ties in play­ing a con­struc­tive role in the process of chang­ing the edu­ca­tional par­a­digm is cru­cial for its very sus­tain­abil­ity, and can only enrich the outcome.

4. VIEWS ON IMPLEMENTATION

In order to sur­vive and stay in the edu­ca­tional envi­ron­ment of the future the uni­ver­si­ties should switch to solution-​based learn­ing, become highly inter­ac­tive, thus trans­form them­selves in the dig­i­tal­ized cen­ters for learn­ing rather than data­bases of knowl­edge that is eas­ily accessed through Inter­net with­out them.
The devel­op­ment of the edu­ca­tion can be ensured thanks to the bal­anced com­bi­na­tion of the for­mal, non-​formal and infor­mal edu­ca­tion, aim­ing at the qual­ity of edu­ca­tion focus­ing in par­tic­u­lar on the ‘learning-​by-​doing’ prin­ci­ple and one of the most effi­cient ones.

5. CON­CLU­SION

We, the par­tic­i­pants of the Inter­na­tional Youth Forum “New Par­a­digm of Edu­ca­tion: Euro­pean Dia­logue” (NPE), real­ize and rec­og­nize the impor­tance of fun­da­men­tal human rights of young peo­ple, with spe­cial empha­sis put on edu­ca­tion. We seek to gen­er­ate dia­logues both ver­ti­cal and hor­i­zon­tal between all the par­ties involved, and advo­cate for those whose voice has been con­tin­u­ously ignored. Luck­ily we can see some move­ment towards bet­ter real­ity, like the fact that the com­pe­ti­tion between hold­ers of formal-​education diplo­mas with­out expe­ri­ence and expe­ri­enced, skilled peo­ple with­out the for­mal edu­ca­tion back­ground is shift­ing towards the pref­er­ence in per­sonal qual­i­ties (such as ethics, man­age­ment skills, team spirit, mod­esty, abil­ity to move for­ward and develop). Nonethe­less the things should speed up with the actions and projects pre­pared by the youth. The changes we pro­pose for the cur­rent par­a­digm should be hap­pen­ing at all lev­els of global soci­ety in order to ensure an equal and sus­tain­able development.

COUN­TRIES REPRESENTED

Arme­nia, Belarus, Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina, Croa­tia, Czech Repub­lic, Den­mark, Esto­nia, France, Geor­gia, Ger­many, Greece, Hun­gary, Italy, Kaza­khstan, Mace­do­nia, Nepal, Poland, Rus­sia, Ser­bia, Slove­nia, Ukraine, USA, Uzbekistan.