On 3 July 2024, a piloting of the Council of Europe’s toolkit on Education at times of emergencies and crisis that was developed to support the implementation of the Resolution adopted by the Council of Europe Standing Conference of the European Ministers responsible for Education in September 2023, was officially launched in Tirana.
The "Education in times of emergencies and crisis toolkit - EDURES" promotes a holistic understanding of the role of education in community resilience and robustness. On the one hand, it enables public authorities to assess the resilience of education systems under stress and to identify relevant actions to improve it. On the other hand, the competencies and assets of education systems should complement resilience-based contingency and strategic planning at the community level. Ultimately, this would allow for greater collaboration between all the different community resilience actors, including those from education systems and civil society.
The Council of Europe’s approach to Education in times of emergencies and crisis aims at strengthening and streamlining the role of education for community resilience and robustness through the six principles for building resilient educational ecosystems and the toolkit, taking into consideration the differences between contexts and types of emergencies and crisis.
The piloting is an endeavour of the Council of Europe’s Education Department and will involve schools already participating in the "Strengthening Democratic Citizenship Education in Albania" project.
The launching event gathered high-level officials and educational stakeholders as well as representatives of the Albanian municipalities of Durrës, Tirana and Kavaja, the Albanian Red Cross, the National Civil Protection Agency, representatives of higher education institutions and international actors, including the EU Delegation, UNDP, and UNICEF.
The piloting was presented by Dr Daniele Del Bianco, Director of the International Institute of Sociology in Gorizia (ISIG), Italy. The participants welcomed the initiative and the idea of "resilience competence" was highlighted, referring to a learning environment's ability to deploy resources effectively in handling emergencies and crises. Similar to democratic competences, resilience competences encompass values, attitudes, skills, knowledge and critical understanding.
Albania’s participation in EDURES implementation was welcomed by the Head of the Council of Europe in Tirana and by the Council of Europe’s Education Department. Vice Minister Guga re-confirmed Albania’s commitment to strengthening democratic citizenship and competences, including through building a more resilient education system. Albanian Ombudsman, Erinda Ballanca underlined that education is more than a basic human right, it is a powerful tool for individual development and social well-being. The mayor of Durrës Emiriana Sako confirmed their interest in being the first pilot city and the exercise also will cover selected pilot schools.
With this work the Council of Europe also contributes to the implementation of the political orientations stemming from 2022 UN Transforming Education Summit, including the Youth Declaration on Transforming Education, and the Council of Europe’s and its Member States' contribution towards the implementation of the Common Agenda and a specific initiative "Education in Crisis Situations: A Commitment to Action".
Immediately following the launching, an enlarged working group meeting took place in Durrës on 4 July and the following day in Sami Frashëri high school in Tirana, one of the Council of Europe project’s high schools.
*The project "Strengthening Democratic Citizenship Education in Albania”, is implemented by the Council of Europe and financed by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
