Free Knowledge for a new Europe - English version

Free knowledgefor a new Europe

Towards EP Elections 2014Rete della Conoscenza - Via IV Novembre, 98 - 00187 Roma [email protected] Tel. 06/69770332

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mailto:[email protected]



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1. EU Elections and EU citizens: rebuild the EU as a space for cit-

izenship

In may the elections for the renewal of the European Parliament will happen. There's two main reas-

ons that lead to consider this elections crucial considering the political time.

On the one hand these elections take place at the end of a cycle of austerity measures that worsen

the devastating effects deriving from the crisis but never notched the causes and those responsible for

it ; on the other hand there's an element of innovation in the method as, for the first time, the

European coalitions will express a candidacy for the President of the European Commission. This in-

novation may make these election truly felt as European, by campaigning on continental-discussed

program and with a common communication framework, while, during the past EP elections each

country spoke for itself and, for certain aspects, to itself.

The solution by now seems saving the democratic representation system from its own crisis by

strenghtening the authoritative structure of the National Governments and of the European gov-

ernance. This solution is incapable of stopping the populist and nationalist drift in Europe and holds

back the social and participation needs of the EU population.

We need to change direction and to understand that no democracy is achievable without social

justice.

After years of mobilizations, from indignados to students fighting against the Gelmini reform (Italy

2008), from the European Strike on the 14th November 2012 to movements against Troika in Greece.,

the EU policy makers cannot avoid expressing and tacking the themes and the keywords coming from

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these squares.

The permanence or the exit of Italy and other EU countries from the Eurozone is a phenomenon to be

considered in relation to the need to build expansive policies and a real relaunch of the welfare state

in the continent. Nowadays austerity measures demolished public services: building the Europe of cit -

izens means giving centrality to welfare policies, disobeying to the duties imposed to local authorities

and, above all, it means imagining new forms and methods through which this struggle can become a

common ground for all the movements in Europe during this spring.

In the current European scenario knowledge plays a central role. We have six more years to reach the

Europe2020 goals and the process of privatisation of schools and university seems to go on the op-

posite directions of the strategy's goals (increase of the number of graduates, decrease of Early

School Leaving -ESL- rates etc..). Getting out of these commitments will anyway imply any kind of

sanction from the European institutions. The “knowledge society” that the Lisbon Strategy foresees -

a capitalistic society which is able to exploit and profit from the immaterial work and from knowledge-

is not in danger to fail because of the Italian anomaly and from its poor investments in education.

For this reason it is necessary to start and generalize the struggle against the process of commercial-

ization of knowledge and of selection to the access at schools and universities, it is moreover neces-

sary to claim for a radical change of the current development strategy starting from the subalternity

condition lived in education and from the innovative power that knowledge can take on.

The high rates of unemployment, precariousness and NEETs are other priorities that we must be able

to set on the European debate. It is fundamental that the struggle for the implementation of a basic in-

come in Italy becomes able to trigger conflicting processes which are spread all around the country.

This struggle must be able to influence the European mainstream priorities which put profits and eco-

nomic rent before rights and future of people.

We want to start from Europe and Europeans, we want to start from those citizens who have been

subjected to Europe, identifying it with the unfair policies that it imposed.

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2. Building democracy, liberating rights.

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Our priorities:

● Launch of a real democratic process that gives more power to the EU Parliament and

less to the National Governments.

● Abolition of the structure of treaties that impose austerity measures on a continental

level by replacing them with a new social agreement between the citizens of the

European Union

● Creation of an EU that levels up the social conditions in each and every member state,

with the possibility of accessing to concrete subsidies that allow to reach the goal of the

EU recommendations.




3. Free Knowledge VS the Knowledge economy

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Our priorities:

● Investments in research aimed at technological innovation in order to rethink the

productive model and aimed at the ecological reconversion in economic

● European strategy to increase investments in research up to the 3% of the GDP,

introduction of mechanisms aimed at helping those countries in financial difficulty or with

a structural lateness in innovation and research.

● Introduction of mechanism of control of private industries' research in order to ensure

that it is aimed at socially and ecologically sustainable purposes




4. Claiming for a public, free and quality education in Europe

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Our priorities:

● Every member state of the EU must invest the 8% of the GDP in education

● Every country in the EU must guarantee a public education system which is totally free

and high-quality

● EU must monitor and make sure that the action plans to reach the 8% are respected by

member states and must provide European Social Funds which are aimed at helping out

those countries which cannot reach this objective. The Six Pack and the Fiscal Compact

should be withdrawn as they prevent from investing in the public sector and they impose

a restriction of the public expense.

● Huge resources coming from the ESF -European social fund- and ERDF -European

regional development fund- must be addressed to the development of educational

systems of the countries with lower investment rates and higher rates of ESL and

unemployment.

● Respect the goals imposed by the EU2020 strategy concerning ESL, life-long learning

(LLL) and literacy rate.

● The EU must commit to impose a certain level of services on the topic of Student Wel-

fare and right to study in each Member State.




5. For an European Welfare Space

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Our priorities:

● Implementation of an European Students Income

● Implementation of an European Basic Income

● A participated and socially driven management of the European Social Funds (ESF)




6. Protected and high-quality Vocational Education and Training for

all

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Our priorities:

● Abolishment of tools like apprenticeships as a way to fulfill compulsory

education. Apprenticeships should be carried out after compulsory education, at

the age of 18

● Raising of the compulsory school attendance age to 18 years old in every Member State

● Introduction of a common educational path for the first 2 years of secondary education

that guarantees a balance and a flexibility between general and specific subjects.

● Total revision of the European communication “Rethinking Education”.

● Strengthening of curricula and learning time in VET schools

● Guarantee to all the students coming from VET to access higher and tertiary education




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● Development of traineeships and internships that guarantee rights to trainees and

interns and coherence of the work-based learning with the individual educational

path

● Development of international mobility programs for VET students to guarantee the

possibility to as many students as possible to meet the different productive context

● Implementation of international vocational guidance that could help Europe to

become a real fertile space for opportunities, free movement of persons , ideas and

creativity

● Unification of national systems of vocational placement (centres for employment) and

co-operation with educational institutions to build “competences portfolios” that highlight

both formal and non-formal education.




7. Evaluation, assessment and didactic must never be tools of selec-

tion: against the limited enrollment in education

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Our priorities:

● revision and clarification of the EU normative on the limited enrollment in education

(especially in universities) towards a structure of evaluation of the student during

education instead of assessing in advance, in order to contrast the negative competition

of students to access medical faculties.

● Elimination of the turnover interruption and implementation of a plan to hire teachers and

researchers in order to balance the student/teacher ratio. The ratio should be evened out

to the European average in countries like Italy.

● Development of a commission for the democratic revision of the quantitative criteria used

nowadays in the standardised testing used on the national and international level (see

OECD PISA test). The use of the quantitative assessment can only be used on statistics

purposes and it is important to contrast its expansion to the formative evaluation in

schools. The political directions given by these test must result in concrete actions

discussed amongst students and teachers.




8. For democracy in education

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Our priorities:

● Development of national referendums to be implemented in schools and universities in

case of important decisions to be made on the national and international level.

● Official recognition in every member state of the student representatives and of the

citizenship status of students

● Compulsory counsel of local students representatives for every reform concerning

schools and universities.

● Implementation of bottom-up connections paths able to propose legislative initiatives

concerning education to be discussed in participated and participative assemblies.

● Strengthening of structured dialogue processes




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Free Knowledge for a new Europe - English version