Culture & Education

www.europeandme.eu

Following The Euros’ interview with its editor Lucy Duggan earlier this month, our website of the month is our fellow European web magazine Europe&Me!!! Launched in September 2007, the English-language project aims to “make Europe personal” for young people.

This means, as Lucy told us, “focusing especially on how being European affects our everyday lives - our love lives, our cultural lives, our sex lives... how it affects the way we tell jokes, the jobs we choose to do, the way we understand our history”.

The magazine, which is published every three months, has five principal sections, which have the initially bizarre-sounding names of Brain, Heart, Diaphragm, Baby and Legs. Lucy explains “our sections are named after parts of the body, because we want our readers to find something for their ’heart’ as well as for their ’brain’, for example”. So roughly speaking, articles in Brain make you think, Heart’s pieces provoke feelings and emotions, Diaphragm’s funny oddities make you laugh, Baby is about sex and love, and Legs inspires taking action and getting involved.

Europe&Me also aims to write about topics that interest people all over Europe, rather than just in one country. Having 125 writers and nine editors spread out all over Europe must certainly make this task easier! It also aims for equality as far as European countries are concerned, as Lucy says,” I think we also manage to give “smaller” countries space in the magazine, rather than focusing on ‘big players’”.

To give a few brief examples, this edition includes articles about, amongst other things, human trafficking, a Spaniard and a Pole who met and fell in love on Erasmus, writing cover letters, sex with robots and the top five bridges and tunnels of Europe. All issues that are relevant and fascinating for young Europeans, some that they can personally relate to, some that are thought-provoking. And all certainly a million miles away from the image of faceless Brussels bureaucrats by which for too many, Europe continues to be symbolised.

Image sourde : E&M Magazine

A report presented to the EU Commission on 10th February has shown that several EU countries, including Germany, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium, are facing a shortage of specialist teachers. The statistics presented by the report include the fact that over 40% of 15 year olds in Germany have no specialist science teacher, and around 30% of Dutch students of the same age do not have a specialist maths teacher.

The signs for the future are also not good. Teaching is an increasingly aging profession - in the UK, Germany and Belgium, over 30% of teachers are close to retirement age - and it appears that for the younger generation, teaching is losing its appeal as a career choice. Despite increased salaries, the number of graduates training to be teachers is falling.

In order to help make teaching a more attractive prospect for younger people, the Commission want to provide an opportunity for 1 million teachers to train and teach abroad as part of the Erasmus for all programme.

“The professional development of teachers is a key factor in ensuring high quality education for our students. That’s why Erasmus for All (the Commission’s proposed new programme for education, training and youth) aims to strengthen the professional development of teaching staff while at the same time modernising education systems," commented Androulla Vassiliou, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth.

The report also showed that while unemployed graduates find work quicker that those without a university qualification, graduates are increasingly having to take jobs for which they are over-qualified.

Read the full press release here:http://europa.eu/rapid/pressRelease...

Image Source: stu_spivack on Flickr

In the UK the New Year was greeted by a further wave of angry protests by students responding to the Government’s cuts to the education budget. The latest announcement was that Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) would be scrapped, meaning that 16-18 year olds from lower income families will no longer be able to receive a weekly payment to enable them to stay in post-16 education. The announcement follows the controversial vote by the House of Commons to raise the university tuition fee limit from its current £3290 to £9000 (€10,500) as of 2012. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has claimed that its new plans for tuition fees are progressive and fair, despite criticism that debt-averse students from lower income backgrounds will be deterred from applying to university. The main target of the students’ anger is Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, who signed a personal pledge pre-election to vote against any further rise in tuition fees. His Liberal Democrat party claims to want “to help people from poorer backgrounds go on to higher education” but their recent actions have called this commitment into doubt.

Photo:Flickr, Seb.Kom

We announced it last week with the launching of the new website: after months of preparation, the Euros are finally on the Italian web….and watch out because it’s really something!!! A truly moticated team with already over fifteen members. Led by Marco Amici (Editor in chief), Guido Sala Chiori (deputy editor) and giulio Bolaffi (responsible for the Italian Society), Gli Euros will enable you to discover European current affairs with a bit of sun and a flight of literature (and gesticulations,…which we leave to your imagination…). Italian or Italians-to-be? Don’t hesitate and without delay visit the Euros’ Italian website!.

On sunday Spain won the 2008 Eurocup final when beating an uninspired German team. Liverpool striker Fernando “el niño” Torres scored the winning goal in the first half. Torres took advantage of his remarkable speed, overtaking German left-back Philip Lahm and beating keeper Jens Lehmann for the ball, before finding the back of the net. Throughout the continent football lovers rejoiced as the competition saw the team with the more attractive, positive and ambitious style of football take home one of the top prices of international football.

Do you wanna save the world while doing practically nothing? Then here is what you do:Access the World Community Grid here. The aim of the World Community Grid is to create the largest public computing grid benefiting humanity. The solution to many of humanity’s problems lies in large scale scientific research and that costs money. Advanced technology now allows you to donate the time your computer is on, but is idle, to different projects that benefit humanity e.g. the fight against cancer or AIDS. All you need to do is to access the site and download and install a small program on your computer and you will be contributing to making the world a better place.

Manchester United took out Spain’s Barcelona and Chelsea eliminated Premier League rivals Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals. This means that it is all English in Moscow on 21 May, when the two giants meet to decide who is the king of European club football. But is it really all English? The two teams draw supporters from the entire world, their coaches are Scottish and Israeli and are owned by two Americans and a Russian respectively and out of the starting 22 players we will probably only see some five or six English players in Moscow. Strong forces in the European football association UEFA argue that UEFA should go all the way, forget the talk about national teams and create a real European league with qualification from the different national leagues. Constructing Europe - also in sports.

The week gave us football when it is most beautiful and yet cruel. In a memorable match, Liverpool kicked out English countrymen Arsenal from the Champions League after a 4-2 win even though Arsenal showed a much more inspiring and beautiful style of football. Liverpool advanced to the semi-finals and faces Chelsea while another English team, Manchester United, takes on Barcelona. On Thursday, in Madrid, Getafe faced Bayern Munich in the UEFA cup. The Spaniards were inches away from delivering the sensation of the year in European football when leading 3-1 with four minutes up. But poor goal-keeping gave the South-Germans two easy goals and Getafe was out. Football at its most beautiful and yet most cruel.

Those are the words of Javier Solana the EU diplomacy chief in response to a question on a potential EU boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The question which has been in the air for several months is becoming especially topical as the attention of the world focuses on the repression of riots in Tibet. While Chinese officials speak of 10 deaths, the Tibetan government in exile says that at least 90 people were killed as a result of Chinese repression. Germany, the UK and France have all confirmed that a boycott of the Olympic games was not an option all arguing that such a boycott would do nothing to improve the situation of the people living in Tibet. Arguably, passed boycotts of the Moscow 1980 games and of the Los Angeles 1984 Games were significant political gestures but changed little in the global balance of power or in the lives of ordinary people. On the contrary, the attention China will be getting this summer could indirectly shed light on human right abuses and the social consequences of China’s huge economic expansion of the past several years.

Let us talk about it. Dialogue is always a good thing right? This must have been what was on the mind of the European Commissioners when they adopted in October 2007 a proposal to baptise 2008 the ‘European Year of Intercultural Dialogue’. To be sure, there are plenty of different conflicts that should be treated to a bit of peaceful pow-wow dialogue in 2008. The status of Kosovo, why the Lisbon treaty is not submitted to a referendum in most EU countries, EU-Russia relation, Turkey’s place in Europe, tensions between different religious or national communities and all the other conflicts that are impossible to predict but will arise in 2008. Dialogue might not always bring luck in the short run but in the long run it helps to see things from the other side of the spectrum. So please, go ahead and dialogue.

Official homepage of the European Year of Intercultural Dialogue

Wednesday is judgement day for nations all over Europe. Wednesday, countries will face success or failure when they try to qualify for the 2008 Euro football cup in Austria and Switzerland. Saturday countries like Norway and Scotland saw their hopes of Euro-participation vanish. This is not politics you say? Indeed it is. Internationals are high-politics. Old conflicts are rehearsed, national identities are reproduced and resentment towards other nations is created. Even if the level of football is often higher in the Champions League the national squads are more popular than ever. To take one example Wednesday millions of English supporters will hold their breath as the faith of their nation is decided in a crucial game against Croatia.