Working for the Quality of Non-formal Education in Europe

Elena Gonzalez i Vidal represented WAGGGS at the 3rd Dialogue on Non-formal Education organized by the European Youth Forum, at the end of May.

This was the third dialogue on non-formal education to be organized by the Youth Forum, which brings together policy-makers, youth organizations and other stakeholders to discuss issues relating to the recognition of non formal education from different perspectives. During this year’s dialogue, the participants focused on how a quality assurance framework could be developed for organizations providing non formal education programmes and how this can contribute to the recognition process.

Over the two-day event, a number of questions were raised: how could learning outcomes be measured; how quality criteria could be defined; should organizations evaluate themselves, or should this be carried out by an external body?  The participants developed a number of recommendations on how these questions should be approached and how youth organizations could be supported to assess themselves on the quality of their programmes as part of the ongoing debate.  

More information about the dialogue, and the recent policy paper on quality developed by the member organizations of the European Youth Forum, can be found on their website.