Ireland’s Presidency of the European Schools’ system welcomed in Carlow

Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow and party spokesperson on children, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor, has welcomed Ireland’s presidency of the European Schools’ system for the 2022/23 school year.

The European Schools’ system comprises 13 European Schools and 21 Accredited European Schools located in 16 of the 27 Member States, including Ireland.

The European Schools (ES) provide children with a multilingual and multicultural education from nursery/primary to the secondary cycles, with students sitting the European Baccalaureate (terminal examination) at the end of their secondary education.

European Schools are governed and administered by a Board of Governors, which includes representatives of governments from across each of the 27 EU Member States and an executive team. The Office of the Secretary General of the ES system is based in Brussels. 

There are almost 40,000 children and young people across the ES system including approximately 400 Irish pupils. For the 2022/2023 school year, Ireland has 59 teachers seconded to teach in European Schools. Ireland took over the Presidency of the ES system from Croatia on 1 August 2022. 

Deputy Jennifer Murnane O’Connor commented:

“It is a great honour for Ireland to assume the Presidency of the European Schools’ system for the next year.  It is the aim of Minister Foley and her department to progress some strategic aspects of the work of the European Schools, including cultivating reflective practice among teachers and active citizenship among young people.

“I am delighted that Ireland’s Presidency team has liaised with higher education institutions in Ireland to support the European Schools’ system and has sought their expertise to develop a series of interactive webinars on individual and collective reflective practice.

“I welcome this collaborative initiative which has great potential to strengthen synergies between school communities, teachers and school leaders.”

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The rotating Presidency of the ES system provides countries with the option to identify possible priority areas for development within the system alongside the ongoing long-term work of the ES system. For its Presidency, Ireland has identified four key priority areas to support the European Schools’ system:

• Cultivating individual and collective reflective practice among teachers in the ES system
• Nurturing and celebrating active citizenship among young people in the secondary cycle in the ES system
• Progressing the meaningful integration of the Accredited European Schools into the ES system
• Furthering work already being undertaken to simplify the administrative systems and procedures of the ES system.

This work will be progressed under the direction of the Board of Governors and will be overseen by the Board of Inspectors and other adminsitrative structures within the ES system.

Two meetings of the Board of Governors will be held during the course of Ireland’s Presidency; one in December 2022 in Brussels and one in April 2023 in the outskirts of Dublin.

These meetings will provide momentum and direction to support the development and implementation of the priorities for Ireland’s Presidency, thus contributing to the ongoing advancement of work already underway within the ES system.

In the period marking the 50th anniversary of Ireland’s membership of the EU on January 1st 1973, Ireland is honoured to have this opportunity to assume the Presidency of the ES system. 

Taking up the baton from Croatia, Ireland is proud to lead the European Schools’ system on the next stage of its journey into its 65th year.