Starting in the 2022-23 academic year, UWC Adriatic students – along with others in Europe – will be involved in a European Jean Monnet – Erasmus+ project to delve into EU topics and participate in debates and discussions such as those in the United Nations, the European Parliament and the European Commission.
The project is based on an idea put forward by UWC Adriatic alum Roberto Castaldi. The project Educate on European topics at IB Schools (EETIB) will pursue two main objectives:
– To raise awareness among young people around the world on the EU’s external action on various topics;
– To strengthen the implementation and exchange of teaching methodologies and information between teachers.
The topics covered by the project include migration, environmental sustainability, human rights and the rule of law, economic and social development, international security, international relations and diplomacy, peace and gender equality.
The project’s expected outcomes consist in the following:
1) To involve teachers and students in debates and activities on the role of the EU in global affairs both in the classroom and in extracurricular activities;
2) To promote networking among teachers, especially those teaching the IB Group 3 subjects (“Individuals and societies”);
3) To develop ideas, methods and suggestions on how to best integrate EU issues into the IB programme;
4) To analyse EU affairs in relation to the global context.
The project consortium brings together five schools offering the IBDP, three of which are part of the UWCs. UWC Adriatic has written the project and is the activities coordinator, while UWC Maastricht is the financial lead. The other consortium partners are UWC Robert Bosch College in Freiburg, Gimnazije Bežigrad in Ljubljana and the British School of Milan.
The project’s Steering Committee is composed by Roberto Castaldi, President of CESUE and Euractiv, Luca Sanna, project manager of CESUE and Euractiv, Maria Chiara Billi, project manager and coordinator of the project, the Rettore and the Deputy Rettore Academic of our College and the heads of the partner schools. At UWC Adriatic the teachers are Joni Makivirta (History), Alice Rustico (Global Politics) and Senija Steta (Economics), alongside our Deputy Rettore Academic – Joanne de Konin – and Rettore Khalid El-Metaal.
The project’s activities will be rolled out over a three-year period and will involve a group of about 10 students and three teachers of IB Group 3 subjects in each school.
In the first year, students will participate in in-depth lectures on European issues, while another group of volunteers will be involved in an Model United Nations (MUN) activity that will include meetings with students in the other partner schools. At the end of the year, students from all 5 schools will meet in Brussels and have a chance to put into practice what they have learned throughout the year in an MUN conference.
The second part of the project will, on the other hand, focus on teachers who will take part in workshops offered by CESUE, an international spin-off centre of the Scuola Sant’Anna in Pisa and EURACTIV, an independent pan-European media network specialised in EU affairs. These learning and networking opportunities will contribute to creating a solid network among the teachers and will facilitate the exchange of best practices. This will result in updating subject curricula by making them interdisciplinary. Students in these schools will therefore benefit from an increasingly wider and more inclusive perspective on global affairs.
