Practices

General Introduction
I. Comenius: Europe in the classroom
The Comenius Programme focuses on all levels of school education, from preschool
to secondary. It is relevant for everyone involved in school education:
mainly pupils and teachers but also local authorities, representatives of
parents’ associations, non-governmental organizations, teacher education
institutions and universities.
Through the Comenius programme, the European Union invests around € 200 million
each year in projects that promote school exchanges, school development, the
education of school staff, school assistantships and more.
Part of the EU’s Lifelong Learning Programme, the Comenius actions aim to help
young people and educational staff better understand the range of European cultures,
languages and values. They also help young people acquire the basic life skills and
competences necessary for personal development, future employment and active
citizenship. This is done by funding transnational mobility, European partnerships and
projects, education networks and school twinning. Larger scale projects and networks
focussing on key EU priorities have pooled expertise from different countries, and
developed innovative approaches. Please see Annex 1 for more details on the actions.
With Comenius School Partnerships and eTwinning, 20,000 schools, 150,000 teachers
and 400,000 pupils experience Europe in their everyday life at school each year.
Comenius Regio Partnerships target the policy level of regional / local authorities.
There are some 12,500 individual mobility grants for teacher education and pupil
mobility awarded every year.
The programme addresses issues strongly related to current discussions and
developments in school policy, such as: motivation for learning and ‘learning-to-learn’
skills, key competences, digital educational content and inclusive education.
II. School education: equipping a new generation
Comenius Projects help participating countries to work together to develop
their school education systems.
Although in the EU each Member State is responsible for the organization and content
of its education and training systems, there are advantages in working together on
issues of shared concern.
The programme contributes to the cooperation of the European Commission with
national policy-makers to help them develop their school education policies and
systems in priority areas.
5