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Democratic Citizenship in Europe · Insights from the Edge

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to a new podcast from the Edge Foundation.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This series is designed to be heard in short verse over coffee or a commute.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: We bring together experts in policy, research, and practice.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: We'll explore how education and the world of work are developing for young people and education providers.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: We'll be asking how that world will give young people across the UK the knowledge and skills they need to flourish in their future life and work.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Insights from the Edge.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: In 2022, the Council of Europe launched a new project and developed the first guidance documents on the reference framework for competences for democratic culture and vocational education and training.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: The Council's broad aim was to support member states to develop a culture of democracy in their vet systems and also help develop competences for democratic culture for vocational learners.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then in 2025, the Council published Learning Democracy in Vocational Education and Training in Europe, an ontology, and Edge commissioned a series of essays based on the chapters in the ontology and written by the same authors.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: We are joined today by Salvador Sala from the Council of Europe.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: Salva is head of the European Space for Citizenship Education Unit and by Soran Christensen from Techne Denmark.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: With Soran, we have developed the guidance document, edited the ontology, and both of us contributed with a chapter in the ontology.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: I have written about learners force and participation, and Soran about the role of social partners in developing competences for democratic culture.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, Salva, could you tell us a little bit about what the Council of Europe actually does?
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: So the Council of Europe is an international organization committed to develop democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in Europe.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: And specifically in education, we've been working in different fields in language policy, in history, in citizenship education, of course, higher education, etc.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, uh Salva.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: Soran, how did you come to engage with this work?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, how do I did I come to engage with it?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Basically, I was asked uh whether I'd be interested in joining, but my background is one I'm a researcher in vocational education and training.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_03: I've been doing that for over 30 years, but I also have a murky past in the field of youth, where I have worked with the Council of Europe in in the past, and there very much work is done on the issue of, should we say, democracy, a citizenship education in the youth field.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: So it was very gratifying for me to be able to sort of join the two things here in this work for the Council of Europe.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Soran.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Silva, why did the Council of Europe start uh focusing on vocational education and training?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: We started in 2022.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: It was already pointing out from our steering committee of education, the what we call the CDA do, they were pointing as the need to develop some work in vocational education and training.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: The Council of Europe never done anything on on this field before.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: It was the first time.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we were implementing the reference framework for competences for democratic culture since 2018, and we started developing and implementing that framework of competences in different areas and fields, for instance in languages, in higher education, in the assessment, in many topics, except for vocational education and training.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it was then the request of our steering committee that we started to do this work on implementing the reference framework of competences for democratic culture in the vocational education and training field.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what is so special about vocational education and training?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: It was very special because it is the first time we do a a work relating to this field.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, I think it's even more special because I th I don't think there is much work relating citizenship education and education for democracy and vocational education and training.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: I think that was a first in Europe.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_02: So I think it was very special that the Council of Europe finally engaged in in developing in relating this missing gap that we had in Europe in you know for all the education for all the education systems and vet systems in Europe to integrate democratic competences in their in their in their vet programs.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: So so definitely it was not only special for us as a Council of Bureau, but also I I I expect very special as well for all the 46 members in Europe in order to start working and committing to uh integrating democratic competences in the VET system and also not only the competences but more broadly a culture of democracy in the in the whole Fed system.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Soran, what do you think?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: Why are competences for democratic culture are important for uh vocational learners?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: It's important for all citizens uh of all ages and in all walks of life and in all sort of um parts of the educational system.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's something that we need to promote, especially in times like these where we're the democracies are under pressure.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_03: Originally, when I was involved in this, I was quite amazed to see that so little had been done in the field of vocational training, given that over 40% of a youth cohort in in Europe that they are are involved in vocational education and training.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: But it was virtually sort of a terra incognita that we ventured into.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_03: There were issues at national level, of course, but when we looked at it from an overall comparative spectrum in Europe, there was there was nothing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_03: So it was very much a pioneering effort.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it was very much one also that was um that needed to be done.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_03: It had been left for too long.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: It was sort of the Cinderella of the educational system, if you like, because the Council of Europe and others have been working with this in general education, higher education for more than 25 years.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: So it's about high time that vocational education training was uh led on the on the bus.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uhing our conversation, we have been mentioning by now, even quite a few times, competences for democratic culture.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a little bit more what competences for democratic culture actually cover?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what does it actually cover?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, basically, it's a competence framework for what is otherwise called citizenship education.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: It's the competences that you need in order to function as a citizen in our societies.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: And when I say function as a citizen, I mean both sort of within the world of work and also sort of in everything that's outside of that.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: You can't function there properly unless you have a number of competences, and these have never really been identified.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: We've been talking about competences for a democratic culture for a very long time.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: But it was only when the Council of Europe in 2016 sat down and said, I mean, now we need to know what we are talking about.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: We need to get some kind of grip on this issue, otherwise we may be discussing things that neither of us, none of us really sort of uh share the same views about.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that was a very, very important landmark and a very big achievement that we have this so-called butterfly model with the four areas of competences for a democratic culture.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: Now, for the first time, we have sort of a reference framework that we can use when we discuss it.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_03: It can still be improved.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_03: It probably is there's things that also could be developed, but now at least we have a shared platform for where we can we can conduct this work.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: In the introduction, I was talking about the guidance document, which was the first publication from the Council of Europe.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Salva, can you tell us a little bit about how the ontology came about?
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean usually when we were implementing the reference framework, we start always doing these what we call guidance documents.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: These are general documents targeting member states, mainly policy makers and governments, in order to ha give them a little bit of guidance to for them to implement that instrument in their con in the national context.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: And so we usually proceed in that way.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_02: We uh start doing this document, providing this general guidance to implement the reference framework for competences for democratic culture into the national context.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because it was the first time we were doing this in vocational education and training, and it was a uh a pioneering work.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_02: We thought it was it was not enough.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: Considering also the huge complexities that the the vet systems have in Europe, we we thought it would be very important to keep the work going into uh another much more concrete publication, that's the ontology, in a more in-depth analysis of different areas of implementation.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: Different areas where like curriculum, uh assessment, teacher training, uh the encompany trainers, the the role of social partners, the student particip uh participation.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_02: So and we thought that that was very needed to provide a much more concrete guidance to member states in different uh aspects in order to help them to to implement and to integrate the RFCDC, the reference framework, into their uh VET systems, national VET systems.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Silva.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you previously mentioned CD Edu, but I think uh perhaps we should really unpack maybe the process, how the ontology was developed, because there has been a lot of consultation throughout.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So can you just give us a a brief overview how the ontology developed from the outset to the publication and who have been involved?
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: So the as I said, the CDA do is the our steering committee.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: These are representatives of uh ministries of education that is our decision uh making body.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: So they decide what are the the new uh lines of work for us to do.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: When we thought of proceeding or doing uh the anthology uh that was called learning democracy in in in vocational education training in Europe, we thought of gathering uh specialized experts in the these different fields.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: We selected eight different fields uh among those I mentioned before, and then we tried to select experts from different areas of Europe, uh trying to, you know, cover on the East Europe, the w North Europe, the Southern Europe, uh Western Europe, and but as well also taking into consideration their own expertise in that field.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we end up creating a small community of experts on different fields from different countries that together will develop this uh second publication that I think it is it is a great publication and and provides much more clarity to member states and to not only the governments but also the practitioners to integrate competences for democratic culture into into that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Solan, why is the ontology significant?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: I think actually, if I might say so, the guidance document is even more significant than the anthology, because the two they come in a sequence.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: And the the guidance document, so to speak, led the foundation and the anthology then went deeper into the issues that were raised in the guidance document.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And we need to stress, of course, that this is a living thing.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is not something where you can give the sort of the final solution once and for all, and then for the rest of the time we can just relax and um and refer to that.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's something that need to that's that's constantly developing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the the big thing was the the guidance document because it was the first time that we had such a foundation at a European comparative level.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_03: So that really was a first, and the the anthology then built on top of that, on that foundation, added much valuable knowledge, but on the basis of what was sort of uh outlined in the guidance document.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: When Solan, you have written one chapter for the ontology, and you have also wrote a shorter essay for uh edge.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: Can you outline a little bit how these two pieces of work uh complement each other?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, then we have to go back again because I mean what's um significant about VET in comparison with other parts of the uh educational system is that the world of work, it's closely associated with the world of work and the actors and stakeholders in the world of work, they have a big influence in how VET is shaped.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: And in many countries, we've all uh Selva mentioned that it, I mean, VET is very diverse in Europe.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's one of the the challenges.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: But uh in many European countries, the uh social partners, as we like to call them, the trade unions and the the employers, they have a huge impact on how vocational education and and and training is shaped and how it's it's implemented.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_03: They have a say uh on curriculum, on governance, on assessment, and they are essential partners in this in VET.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_03: You can't think VET without thinking of the world of work.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_03: And uh if you haven't got the world of work on board, then you risk failing with your mission if you would like to sort of introduce a bigger element of uh citizenship education in in VET.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: Countries with an apprenticeship system, uh, enterprises are also a very important learning venue.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_03: They spend up to sort of 75% of their time in the enterprise, 25% of their time in the in the school.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_03: So, I mean, uh if you really want to to for this to have an impact, you need to have them on board.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_03: But it's not easy, it's it's challenging.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I think one of the issues is the moment you mention the word democracy, there is a kind of gut reaction that, well, that's got nothing to do with the world of work because uh the world of work, I mean, that's not about voting, I mean, it's management that takes the the decision.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: But of course, democracy we're talking about here citizenship, uh, citizenship education.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's not only about voting, it's also about reaching decisions through dialogue, through negotiation, and that's something that's highly important also in the world of work.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Employers, of course, uh, it's their decision how to run their their uh their company, but they are generally very interested in also having a dialogue with workers and and that workers' uh staff, they do have the competences that allow them to enter into a structured dialect so that decisions can be taken not through voting but through consultation.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_03: That's the reason why they also see the need to invest in the development of competences for a democratic culture.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: But if you say democracy, so so therefore it's very much about language also, but there is a very strong commitment, more evident in some countries than in others, where employers they they get engaged in developing this in the workforce and in the learners, the apprentices for instance, uh, and they spend resources on that.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, thank you.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, especially because of course uh coming from Denmark, you have a high level of engagement, but that doesn't necessarily uh the case in every Council of Europe member states.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Again, reflecting back a little bit since 2022, Salva, what do you think what are the greatest successes you would be most proud of?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Also for you as an individual, as a person, but also in terms of the Council of Europe.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I think another success story that we we have, apart from the two publications that we are we we have we have been talking about, is also the collection of specific examples of policy and practice.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: We have collected more than a hundred examples from thirty-eight member states and shows that a lot of is going on already in Europe.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_02: There are a lot of practices, but there's still many, many uh things to do.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: Could see that from all the the examples we categorize, we organize them, we publish.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_02: They're all available in our website, you can download it.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_02: But you can see that we are organized those examples by the the chapters of the anthology, by the topics of the anthology, and you can see that some topics are far less represented or far less the number is not is not equal from all these areas.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So that shows that that we can still have a lot of work to do in many in many uh areas of of work.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_02: But it shows as well that uh already there's a commitment that there's already a movement in Europe, in many member states, on you know uh organizing activities or doing some policy, uh developing some practices around uh the competences for democratic culture, and that's really exciting.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: And another uh exciting development that we are currently working on is the preparation of a new committee of ministers recommendation in developing a culture of democracy and vocational education and training so that will put all these uh in it into uh soft law for all the member states, and that is also a great achievement.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Salva.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: You were already pointing to the next steps, uh, which is uh great.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Soran, if you had to identify one single success for yourself, what would that be?
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_03: I think I already mentioned it because you remember when we started working with the guidance document, I was quite surprised to see how little material that was available.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: It took a lot of research trying to sort of tease out um good examples of practice from member states and seeing them in a broader European context and sort of working them into the guidance document.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: So I feel very proud and I feel very honored to have been involved in this work.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you, Soran, because it has been really rewarding working with the Council of Europe, with you, Salva, particularly, and Soran with you, and going through this process.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think on the way we have actually developed a fantastic vocational community who have been supporting this great work.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and I'd like to thank you both, Salva and Soran, taking part in this.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for listening.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, insights from Edge will be back with another episode very soon.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: Bye bye.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is produced by the Edge Foundation.