THE IMPORTANCE OF CIVIC EDUCATION CANNOT BE OVERLOOKED Civic education is at the core of many activities of AEGEE, as we have seen generations of our members develop into responsible and active citizens through our projects, trainings and events. In the last few years, civic education has become a particularly important topic of discussion in our organisation. We have observed the lowering rates of youth participation in democratic processes which poses a big challenge for Europe and, while actions are being taken to improve the current situation, we see there is a need for more effort. AEGEE has defined civic education as one of its
we aim to conduct a research to define challenges
Focus Areas in our Strategic Plan. On one hand, we are
in the legislation and implementation of formal civic
aiming to increase the civic competences of our own
education, which would enable us to develop proposals
members and, on the other hand, we are striving to put
“ While rates of youth participation
the topic of civic education on the political agenda at all levels. Although these are ambitious goals, we believe that the importance of this topic cannot be emphasized enough and in line with that, we have been working hard on it this year, which yielded some interesting results. In our organisation, we have been working to empower our members through activities of projects such as Election Observation and Democracy in Practice, as well as through stimulating and increasing participation in online discussions. Externally, we have
have been lowering, this generation of young people is still full of ideas
”
and potential.
for improvements in the future. If citizens are not informed about their rights and
actively participated in activities of platforms such as
their responsibilities and they are not empowered to
the European Civic Forum. Furthermore, we have been
participate from an early age, our society will face more
monitoring policies and working on developing our
and more challenges, as all democracies depend on
official position on the matter, a process that will be
active participation and contribution of their citizens.
completed by the newly established Civic Education
While rates of youth participation have been lowering,
Working Group.
this generation of young people is still full of ideas and
The Working Group will also participate in fulfilling the ambitious objectives that we, as an organisation,
potential, which is why it is crucial to turn them into truly active citizens.
have set for the upcoming year. Internally, we will keep focusing on empowering young people through
Antonija Parat
trainings and Summer Universities, our longest-running
Secretary General of AEGEE-Europe 2014-2015
project that reaches thousands of young people across Europe every summer. Externally, we aim to start a European Citizens’ Initiative or an equivalent petition on increasing the topic of civic education in the curricula of institutions of formal education. This will surely be an exciting process for our organisation. Furthermore,
97 | Thematics & internal education