Context

The long-term vision of the Council of Europe's Education Strategy 2024-2030 "Learners first" is that all learners will be able to fully exercise their rights as active citizens in democratic societies. Advancing education through a human rights-based digital transformation is one of the 3 priority pillars of the strategy.

Digital transformation of education has changed the landscape dramatically in recent years having contributed to enhancing teaching and learning processes, widening access to educational resources, promoting digital literacy, and fostering innovative approaches that improve educational outcomes and equip learners for the digital age.

The Council of Europe has launched the European Year of Digital Citizenship Education 2025 (European Year 2025) to give a new impetus to the development and promotion of digital citizenship education in all member states.

The European Year 2025 stands as a unique opportunity to enhance the visibility and impact of digital citizenship education (DCE) and reaffirm its value. This designated year shall provide a strategic platform for key stakeholders from the public, private and civil sectors to work together, set common goals and share sense-making practices. It will provide a concise yet impactful space for measuring achievements and collectively defining a road map for the future of digital citizenship education. Through streamlined efforts, this initiative is expected to propel DCE forward, ensuring its resilience and effectiveness in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

The Forum

The Forum is designed in a way as to help the member states in further creating inclusive, equitable, and empowering learning environments. The outcomes of the Forum are called to foster the integration of digital citizenship education as a policy priority, to redesign pedagogical approaches and learning environments, as well as to leverage digital technologies to benefit all learners. The ultimate goal of the Forum is to contribute to identifying realistic actions to respond to the challenges that have emerged or been amplified by digital technologies.

The main objectives of the Forum are:

• to promote multistakeholder collaboration taking full advantage of benefits provided by digital citizenship education,
• to showcase DCE initiatives and knowledge material on pan-European and international levels, and
• to validate thematic directions and to develop specific actions for the road map for the next 5 years.

The working languages of the Forum will be English and French.

Download the concept note and programme outline.