ISDUE News: International Social Democratic Union for Education

The 48th Congress of ISDUE was held in Rome, Italy during the days 26 to 31 July 2002 on the theme : Access and Success for All: Teachers and Learners in the Knowledge Society.

The Congress began on the evening of Friday 26 July 2002 with a welcome dinner in Campidoglio, on behalf of the Mayor of Rome, Walter Veltroni.

Saturday’s formal Opening Session saw speeches during the morning by Guiseppe Vacca, President of the Gramsci Foundation, and Marina Sereni, International Secretary of DS to introduce the theme .

These were followed by welcomes to delegates from Hilde Hawlicek, President of ISDUE and Marcella Binchi, Organiser of the Rome Congress. Professor Sebastiano Bagnara of the Polytechnic of Milan gave us his thoughts on ‘Teaching and Learning in the time of flexibility’.

Delegates were pleased to hear a contribution from Helene Zago of the Sinistra Giovanile on Learners as Protagonists of their own Learning. This was then followed by a speech on Education for Citizenship: a Social Democratic Point of View by Walter Tocci, M.P.

A round table and debate on the topic of Local Poloicies for Access and Success lead by contributors from Pisa, Reggio Emilia, Vienna, Espoo, Budapest and Derbyshire was held during the afternoon.

Sunday was spent in Perugia with a welcome from the local authorites and time for working groups and a short time for a brief city tour. The working groups addressed the topics of Local Policies in Education, Teachers’ condition in the changing school and Teachers and Learners in the learning process. The evening gave an opportunity to visit one site of Festa della Unita held by the socialist party at many venues across Italy.

On Monday 29 July the reports from the working groups were presented to the Congress. This was followed by the General Assembly which dealt with all the necessary business of ISDUE including elections of Officers, audit and acceptance of the accounts and the plan of activities for the coming year. A presentation was made to Hilde Hawlicek to celebrate the completion of her four year term as President of ISDUE.

Many delegates took the opportunity to stay and take advantage of the optional visit to Pompeii and Naples where we were greeted by local party officials at Torre Annunziata and taken on an excellent private tour of the archeological site of Pompeii.

Seminar in Budapest – 14 September 2002

ISDUE Officers attended the seminar held in Budapest to support the work of the Hungarian Socialist Party in preparation for their elections. The theme of this seminar was “Local Policies” and extended the work begun at the summer Congress paying particular attention to the circumstances and the situation in Hungary.