Screening of the three films shortlisted for this year's LUX Prize is now taking place around Europe. This year's finalists are: "Bande de filles" (Girlhood), "Razredni Souvražnik" (Class Enemy) and "Ida" - which additionally is the top nominee for the European Film Awards.
The LUX Prize
was initiated by the European Parliament in 2007 to illuminate public debate on European integration and to facilitate the diffusion of European films. Awarded annually, the LUX Prize is voted for by Members of the European Parliament. More...
Friendly Resources for playful speech therapy
The project "Friendly Resources for playful speech therapy" (FREPY) implemented by the Vytautas Magnus University helps children with language difficulties improve their communication and linguistic skills. FREPY is this year's winner of the European Language Label in Lithuania
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FREPY develops interactive and multi-functional intervention resources (both online resources and printed materials) for language support in four European languages: German, Lithuanian, Estonian and Slovenian. More...
Man with a mission
By Marilyn Achiron Editor, Directorate for Education and Skills. David Puttnam had a storied 30-year career as an independent film producer (The Mission, The Killing Fields, Local Hero, Chariots of Fire, Midnight Express, to cite just a few of his award-winning films) before he retired from film production to focus on public policy related to education, the environment, and the creative and communications industries. Lord Puttnam, who is now the UK Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Viet Nam, Laos, Cambodia and Burma, the Republic of Ireland’s Digital Champion, and chair of Ireland-based Atticus Education, which delivers interactive seminars on film and other subjects to educational institutions around the world, quit school at 16. (“I was bored to tears,” he says. “It was night school that saved me.”) Marilyn Achiron, editor at the Directorate of Education and Skills, met with Lord Puttnam in early November when he was in Paris to give a keynote address to the CERI Conference on Innovation, Governance and Reform in Education. Read more...
How to help the world's youth
By Nicole Goldin. Brimming with talent and ideas, today’s youth – the largest and most connected generation in human history – are creating a new global reality, and charting an unprecedented course for themselves and their communities. They are defending democracy, promoting peace, and with an enterprising spirit, desperately wanting the opportunity to work hard, build a sustainable livelihood and live up to their potential. Today’s young people are an inspired generation, poised to drive global prosperity and security not only for themselves and their families today, but their communities and nations for generations to come. More...
A critical moment to engage young people
By Katherine Ellis. As the world deliberates on the post-2015 agenda, there has never been a more critical moment to engage young people. The inclusion of youth perspectives, and the energy, diversity and talent that young people bring, is a clear-cut imperative. Young people have an incredible amount to offer to national development processes, and, with the right support and opportunities, can be empowered to realise their full potential. More...
Every child has special needs: “secrets” of Finnish education
By Janet English. In 2013 I moved to Finland on a Fulbright Award to learn the “secrets” of Finnish education. For the next six months I traveled by train, on bus, on bike and on foot to observe classrooms, document Finnish educational practice, and interview teachers, administrators and students. I began this journey to find out what makes Finnish students successful problem solvers in PISA, but along the way I learned much, much more. Finns have been combining high quality educational research with classroom practice for more than twenty-five years and they’ve designed an educational system to optimize learning for every child, regardless of a student’s educational needs. The rest of us need to be paying attention. There are many aspects of Finnish education that can and should be incorporated into schools systems abroad. More...
Stimulating SME Equity Financing? Change The Culture
By Marcus Schuller. Let’s face it: the bulk of small and medium-sized entreprises (SMEs) are still financed mainly by bank credit. However, as bank finance is harder to come by in the current post-crisis environment, fostering non-bank financing alternatives may help closing an SME financing gap. The OECD has been looking into such issues, also with input from the private sector via its Financial Roundtables. After the one held in April that discussed SME non-bank debt financing, this one, held in October, explored impediments and possibilities for public equity financing for SMEs. More...
Today is Cyber Monday. And so is tomorrow and the next day and the next…
By Andrew Wyckoff. Today is Cyber Monday – although the term is less than ten years old, so you may not have even known it. Like its better known cousin ‘Black Friday’, ‘Cyber Monday’ is a marketing term to mark the kick-off of the holiday shopping season, right after Thanksgiving, in the US. Unlike Black Friday though, Cyber Monday is all about e-commerce: the New York Times sanctified the term in 2005, with the observation that “millions of otherwise productive working Americans, fresh off a Thanksgiving weekend of window shopping, were returning to high-speed Internet connections at work Monday and buying what they liked.” More...
ALADIN Online Alert
The ALADIN network has launched a new initiative, the ALADIN Online Alert, designed to share, on a bi-monthly basis, new online and full-text information and documents in the areas of adult learning, adult literacy, lifelong learning and technical and vocational education and training (TVET). ALADIN, the Adult Learning Documentation and Information Network, was established to support networking and information-sharing between libraries and information services in the areas of adult learning and literacy. Today it comprises 96 documentation centres in 47 countries in all regions of the world. These range from large university libraries and research units to small NGO resource centres and online collections.
The new ALADIN Online Alert was developed by ALADIN members Centre de documentation sur l'éducation des adultes et la condition féminine (CDÉACF) and the Library of the UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL), based on the good example of the Online Alert of ALADIN member UNESCO International Bureau of Education (IBE). Other ALADIN members have already agreed to regularly contribute to this new information service, helping to ensure the broadest possible balance of region and content.
Contact information: Lisa Krolak, ALADIN Coordinator. More...
ITMO University opens new office in Brussels
The St. Petersburg National Research University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics (ITMO University) in Russia has announced that it has opened a new international office in Brussels, Belgium.
The university said the new office, that was inaugurated at a special event in Brussels this week, “is created for scientists and researchers all over the world in order to organise an effective international collaboration and active scientific cooperation”. Moreover, it said the new location would allow it to spread information about itself more actively, and would open up additional opportunities for staff and students of the ITMO University, including the “active involvement of foreign colleagues for joint research and educational projects”.
More information is available on the ITMO website. More...