DESC - Democratic Education in Schools
DESC is a European project funded by the Erasmus+ Programme. It is implemented by nine partners in five European countries including democratic schools, state schools, school networks and universities.
The project starts from the consideration that traditional educational models are scarcely adapted to equip students with 21st century skills. At the same time, statistics show that schools are generally not suited to help students to be satisfied in their life, in their job and to develop a strong sense of belonging in their school community.
For these reasons, the project aims at promoting the integration of democratic educational approach into the European education systems, as a way of fostering life and citizenship competences in schools to take up their responsibilities and social commitments, and to fulfill their talents.
Project Steps
The activities are grouped into four major Project Results, combined with project meetings, learning, teaching and training activity and multiplier events.
PR1: Research Report
DESC will develop an innovative cross-country research on democratic education in Europe. Partners will analyse the main drivers and barriers for implementation of this approach in respective national contexts and map local stakeholders interested in developing cross-sectoral collaboration. The research will also identify the training needs for teachers in the field of democratic education. An online Multiplier Event will be organised to share the main research findings.
PR2: Teacher Training
Based on the Research Report elaborated in PR1, all partners will contribute to develop DESC Teacher Training and an impact assessment framework to evaluate training effectiveness on participating schools. The teacher training will be tested and validated during C1.
PR3: DESC Platform / Training
DESC Platform will be created, to host:
- The validated and translated teacher training
ACCESS TRAINING - A Knowledge Center with educational resources uploaded by partners
- An Agora where educational practitioners and external stakeholder can communicate
- A DESC interactive map that will identify all the schools and practitioner’s following the DESC methodology
At least 5 teachers from each school will follow the online training course and will practice what they learned in their respective school environment.
PR4: Transferability and Policy Recommendations:
DESC will produce transferability guidelines to support project partners in scaling up the democratic education approach by engaging all relevant stakeholders. Partners will develop national transferability action plans with concrete actions to adapt the transferability guidelines into their context.
Policy recommendations will be produced to raise awareness on democratic education at local, regional, national and European contexts.