Education experts exchange ideas via online platform for minority education

Those who network and think outside the box can learn a lot from each other. That is why the FUEN Education Working Group has set itself the goal for this year of launching a digital platform with methods, activities and ideas around minority language teaching.

In order to develop the concept for this, an online expert meeting took place on Tuesday, 31 May, at which 14 members of the Education Working Group and interested persons exchanged their ideas and experiences. The focus was on both the technical framework and concrete content. What areas should such a platform cover? The legal framework was also discussed, as there are many things to consider when making copyright-protected material available online.

All participants saw expertise as an important point: What is the strength of my own minority? What are our current work priorities and challenges? Important projects could be linked so that interested parties can get a good overview – for example, also in the form of short video contributions on best-practice examples.

The goal is not to develop a complete picture with the participation of all minorities, but to start small with those who want to get involved and can contribute meaningful content. This is because the platform is primarily intended to inspire how certain topics or models can also be developed in a similar way in one's own minority or serve to master current challenges. In a first step, this was already achieved at the expert meeting itself. Lars Koefoed-Jensen, Managing Director of Dansk Skoleforeningen, the school association of the Danish minority in Germany, remarked: "During our round of presentations, it became clear to me that we have something in common with the Ladins in one small area: Namely, we also work together with Frisians." Their position within the Danish school association – Frisian alongside Danish and German – has many similarities with Ladin in South Tyrol. So it is high time that Frisians and Ladins exchange and learn from each other. The new platform should help to promote precisely such cooperation.