Comm-Edu: Community agreements for Education

"<< Background >>The health crisis related to COVID-19 has led to a general impoverishment of educational offerings, hitting especially recreational and cultural activities aimed at promoting active citizenship and the acquisition of soft skills by younger people.According to the European Commission document ""School Policy-A Comprehensive and Integrated Approach in the Fight against School Dropout,"" school policies should be based on a comprehensive and inclusive vision of education based on the centrality of the student, in which high-quality education is accessible to all. To this end, it is essential to adopt a comprehensive and integrated approach. The dimension of integration, referred to as the global approach, feeds on knowledge and expertise pertaining to different fields, and is achieved by virtue of collaboration among professionals working in different fields. This approach implies a cross-sectoral view and closer cooperation with a wide range of stakeholders (cultural bodies, youth services, local authorities, the third sector, businesses, etc.) and the wider community.<< Objectives >>The overall objective of Comm-Edu was to promote an innovative approach to educational provision in the area of active and European citizenship in order to combat educational poverty and early school leaving, based on the creation of educational communities at the local level that involved public-private partnerships and the most relevant stakeholders.The specific Objectives were: -Analyze needs and good practices at the European level on active citizenship education through the involvement of the educating community (global approach);-Promote the development of educating communities at the local level, laying the groundwork for the creation of a replicable model;-Elaborate a template, valid for diffeent European countries, for the establishment of educating communities at the local level;-Promote awareness of project issues among local communities, also fostering student involvement and participation within the local communities<< Implementation >>The main activities implemented within COMM-EDU were:A1: Kick-off meeting, necessary for the start of the projectA2: Preliminary research (Preparation), on education for active citizenship through the involvement of the educating community (global approach)A3: Establishment of the educating communities at the local level (Implementation), which took the form of meetings with local educating community members in order to investigate the possible role of the community in the educational process of local young peopleA4: Transnational project meeting and co-design workshop: held in Assisi, Italy, led to the emergence of the main points to be included within the community agreement templateA5: Elaboration and translation of the Community Agreement template valid for all partner countries and developed based on the research report and meetings with the educating community held in the previous monthsA6: Organization of a final event in each partner countryA7: Project management and Dissemination of results.<< Results >>The main outputs of the project have been:1) Research report on local community involvement in the process of youth education 2) Template ""Community agreement,"" between public, private, school and third sector entities through which to establish communities of practice underlying the model of educational offerings dedicated to local youth, available in 5 languages3) 4 events in the 4 partner countriesOther results were:-Establishment of a dialogue between students and communities-Improvement of the educational offer dedicated to students -Creation of European-level connections at all educational levels"