Event report

In the wake of the previous experience with the 2015 Wise4All campaign, S-Com has launched in 2020 the WISE4Challenges project to promote women's participation in the debate revolving around the Recovery and Resilience Fund and how the latter can be used to reduce social inequalities. As its primary goal, the project aimed to encourage, incite, and promote the participation of women and young citizens in the political decision-making process regarding Europe's post-pandemic “revival”. The action has seen the creation of five pillars (packed in four Working Groups), which are: green deal, gender health, social rights and education and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The WG on education has been composed by a network of 15 Spanish schools that have been working with INCOMA throughout the project. The aim has been to gather the experiences of young people and trainers during the pandemic in terms of gender equality, and to learn first-hand how they have coped with the digitisation process. INCOMA has organised two online debates with its network of education centres, in which both students and trainers participated. The debates were carried out in online mode, whereas the surveys have been delivered through Google Forms and advertised in the newsletters through MailChimp. The WG has also carried out a survey on the topic of the future of education, disseminated both to students and trainers or anyone involved in the field of education, by reaching a total of 164 responses. All of the surveyees answered questions related to the future of education, digital divide, gender equality and European recovery funds with the intention of concretising different proposals and points of view on the Future of Education. All the questions and answers are collected in a specific report with all the evidence. The final event organised by INCOMA dealt with the three subtopics explained below. Firstly, a presentation about how to improve the future of Europe through education took place in order to set some basic concepts to be further explored during the discussion. This presentation was held by MaryCruz Arcos, Head of EuropeDirect and CDE Sevilla. Secondly, a presentation on proposals for the future of education was given by José Vicente Hernández from IES Politécnico (an education centre that has been part of INCOMA’s network during the project). Thirdly, a presentation on the future of education from a gender perspective was given by Dolores Limón Domínguez from Universidad de Sevilla. Furthermore, participants of the Conference on the Future of Europe watched a video interview with the Spanish Lina Gálvez MEP. Next, the participants took part in two online surveys and questionnaires. One was on the future of Europe and the other one on the future of education. After each survey there was a short analysis of the results by INCOMA. Eventually, the participants had the chance to get involved in a discussion on the results of the online surveys. The main conclusions are: The COVID-19 pandemic has unequivocally changed the education processes and aggravated the situation of those students without resources. Indeed, most of the difficulties relate to the lack of resources, digital literacy and digital divide, being these affecting transversally all components of society. On the other hand, the move to online education has not significantly increased gender inequality, rather consolidated pre-existing vulnerabilities for women. This has been reflected in the survey data with an audience of 164 people, comprised of students (77%), trainers (19.5%) and others from different areas of education (3,5%), with no preference given to gender (women at 53.7%, men at 46,3%). Not surprisingly, most responses on whether the pandemic has affected gender equality have been more likely to be at a lesser extent than expected. However, gender inequalities has been referred to in terms of unequal distribution of household chores to female students, unequal domestic overload of female teachers, compared to their male colleagues, precariousness of some jobs held by women and an increase in gender-based violence. The lack of resources on the part of both trainers and learners - when they come to dealing with an online education system - has been alluded to. With regard to their performance as student or trainer, 64,6% of the respondents believes that online education has affected them negatively, and wish to go back to face-to-face training or hybrid model. Even though most of them prefer to return to face-to-face education, it is assumed that training in basic and advanced digital skills and the provision of resources are considered essential to achieve equality in all senses, and a key aspect for future emergency situations. This has been further confirmed by the fact that most respondents (75%) believe that digital education should play a pivotal role in increasing equality and inclusiveness, and that there is a direct link between democratic quality and access to digital resources and information. Somehow connected to this, when asked how they would like to receive the Recovery Funds from the European Union, 44% out of the surveyed has preferred the 'direct aid' modality, whereas almost 30% of them would have increased allocations under Erasmus+ and European Commission programmes. Lastly, 26% of the surveyed expressed preference via 'social funds'. When asked if they think fighting disinformation is essential in order to promote a democratic education, the vast majority of respondents, almost 90%, answered positively. In relation to this, the majority of respondents presented arguments that directly link democracy to the importance of having one's own criteria. Therefore considering that equal access to quality information makes education more egalitarian and democratic. These conclusions do not remain just on paper! WISE4All platform will adopt these, along with the action plans for an inclusive and sustainable development of Europe. MORE INFO https://www.scom.eu/portfolio/w-i-s-e-4all-challenges/ https://www.scom.eu/portfolio/wise4all/