The topic of this seminar as well as the title of my contribution are far-reaching – probably too far-reaching to be dealt with in seven minutes I have been given for my presentation. I would like to deal with two of the questions that have been put to me:

• Who should act to influence the outcomes of education?

• How could it be done, that means do we have examples of good practices?

When it comes to the ‘who’ are the actors to influence education, the Council of Europe as an all-European intergovernmental organisation is in a unique position to bring together the various sectors of society, involved in the development of the contents and policies of education. Since 1949, the Council of Europe works with European governments AND in close co-operation with the respective partners in civil society on political, social and cultural issues. The most prominent feature of the Council of Europe, the European Court of Human Rights is until today the only international legal structure where an individual person can complain about a violation of his or her human rights.
In the field of education, the Council of Europe’s work is based in the context of a series of values, in order to avoid that education and its institutions are abused like we know it from many examples in history, also recent ones. The European Convention on Human Rights may be seen as the paradigm of values, creating the main pillar of our work. In our action, we concentrate on two sectors of education:

1. The formal education in schools and universities, which is to a big extent compulsory and under the direct responsibility of the state and of public authorities.

2. The non-formal education outside the compulsory system, which is based on voluntary efforts of the participants, but in many cases also voluntary effort of those organisations and associations providing space for non-formal learning.

So, who should do what?
Unfortunately, we often witness political approaches, where education is used as ‘fire-police’, rather than as the major resource to do preventive and long-term work. Quick action of nonformal and formal education is demanded, when violence rises, social conflict grow and when politics and legislation cannot solve problems. However, education by its nature is a permanent, long-lasting, difficult and repetitive process, which needs stable political and financial support. The shortcomings of the past cannot be remedied within a couple of months or years, nor with some intensive funding of short time projects on subjects that are politically in fashion at the moment. In the hierarchy of ministries on national level, education and youth matters are often found at the bottom of the pyramid, be it for the level of political influence or concerning the human and financial resources made available.

Governments, on the local, regional, national and international level need to take on their responsibility to create permanent conditions for formal and non-formal education to work in a long-term perspective against intolerance. Coherence between what is taught and how it is taught is needed for practiced participation and social cohesion.
How to do it? There are many examples of good practices; I would like to name four points each for formal and non-formal education:

Regarding formal education, I would like to underline four points:

1. Social relations must be based on solidarity, not on competition. School curricula must be enlarged in order to give education for democratic citizenship, intercultural learning, human rights education and holocaust education an uncontested place.
School must be a learning environment for democracy and active participation and may not limit itself to prepare young people predominantly for adaptation and fitting into the labour market.

2. The contents of teaching must be evaluated to eliminate all notions of racist, ethnocentric, nationalistic and discriminating notions. This applies in particular to civic subjects, history geography and foreign language teaching. In the Council of Europe’s programme on history teaching, neighbouring countries look at text and history books together to define a common view of their joint history. At last year’s conference here in Stockholm, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe put forward a proposal that each school in Europe should dedicate on day of reflection on crimes against humanity and the Holocaust every year. This proposal was unanimously adopted by the European Conference of Ministers of Education last October.

3. Research, which was also presented at the Final Conference of the Council of Europe’s project ‘Education for Democratic Citizenship’, shows that the more democratic a school environment is organized the more positive the pupil’s attitudes towards tolerance, respect for diversity and acceptance of their responsibility in society will be.

4. Training of teachers in this respect is essential, as teachers themselves are exposed to a basically not very democratic very hierarchical system, despite their strong union organisations. Egalitarian relationships with head masters and inspectors and teamwork are the exception, rather than the rule. Many teachers strive to bring an international and mediation dimension in their work by organising international exchanges and projects dealing with conflict resolution - but most of them will do this as a voluntary effort as this is not considered their evident task.

As regards non-formal education, I would also like to state four points: 1. Youth policy has to provide the conditions that young people are not seen only as the goal of education but as educators themselves and one of the biggest resources for education. Non-formal education concentrates on learning by doing, participating and acting. In this context, the involvement and active participation of young people is the key, young people have to be seen as a resource and not as a problem. Peer-education programmes – meaning young people educating young people – have been developed in the Council of Europe’s youth campaign ‘all different-all equal' and proved particularly successful in the field of combating intolerance.

2. Victims of intolerance must become actors of change. The Council of Europe youth sector runs in the fifth year a training programme for young people and youth leaders from minorities. The programme helps minority young people to get out of social exclusion and isolation by giving them the access, the structures, the competence and the motivation to participate actively and confidently in civil society.

3. Non-formal education does not only concern young people. Adults need to develop an awareness that a critical look at their own attitudes, the development of empathetic competencies and to understand complex cultural relations need practice and require support as much or even more as for young people. Life-long learning is the notion to describe this ongoing process.

4. Creating intercultural awareness and learning about the local environment needs to happen simultaneously. To learn about the ‘far away’ does not prevent children and young people to understand their daily environment, the opposite is the case. Youth organisations and associations have been playing and play an absolutely essential role to give space to young people to widen their horizons and to get intercultural and international experience. The Council of Europe youth sector has in co-management with youth organisations developed numerous training programmes,
activities and materials on intercultural learning and combating intolerance. From 2000 – 2002 we are running a priority programme on human rights education, aiming to create a European wide network of multipliers in this field. To conclude, I would like to stress the importance of a lively and enhanced dialogue and exchange between the different decision-makers dealing with matters of education and youth.

Youth questions are touching the competencies of many ministries, be it education, social affairs, labour, defense etc. Interdisciplinary dialogue is urgently needed to create coherence. Both, in formal and non-formal education the Council of Europe has, does and will in future implement in co-operation with the governments of its member states and non-governmental partners concrete measures, projects, training activities and materials for school and youth work. But despite its uncontested reputation in the field of human rights the organisation finds itself today in the hierarchy of European institutions at the same place where education can be found on national level. We do a lot, but we could do much more and better, if stable financial and human resources will ensure the quality standards of our work. In this sense, I would answer the question on ‘who should do what’ by saying that the coherence between political speak and political action are the necessary precondition to bring about real changes.