The project

Selected and co-financed by the EACEA (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency) in 2011, ECLIPSE (European Citizenship Learning in a Programme for Secondary Education) is a European network animated by six partners, which aim to work together in order to contribute to the improvement of Civic Education in European Dimension.

We aim to the early developing of key competencies, focusing on active learning and self-planning by the students (portfolio), in supporting awareness in the choice of the upper secondary school or vocational training and fostering links between formal and non formal learning. The ECLIPSE project includes teacher training activities.

With ECLIPSE, the Consortium intends both to contribute to the development of quality lifelong learning and to promote high performance, innovation and a European dimension in systems and practices in the field and to reinforce the role of lifelong learning in creating a sense of European citizenship based on understanding and respect for human rights and democracy, and encouraging tolerance and respect for other peoples and cultures.

In order to reach these objectives, the six ECLIPSE partners planned their work as follows:

1. testing of students and teachers aiming to understand the current situation in the different countries;
2. planning, implementation and development of materials;
3. working with teachers;
4. finding the best strategies to reach the key competences, especially learning to learn, citizenship and initiative.

High level active learning is basis for quality lifelong learning and for the world of work. The ECLIPSE Consortium is organising contacts and cooperation among countries, motivating and training teachers and pupils for quality work done together, exchanging the best solutions in fostering a sense of European citizenship, understanding the importance of human rights and democracy, reducing prejudices through reciprocal knowledge and practicing respect for diversities of peoples and cultures.

The project is a special opportunity to know strengths and limits of traditional and innovative pedagogical approaches, in the involved countries, to improve the daily work, to appreciate the value of good school management and to improve it.

ECLIPSE will find out effective solutions, among them the attention at participative evaluation, aiming to develop criteria for a “portfolio for pupils and for teachers in the field of civic and citizenship education”.

Special attention will be given to pupils with disability or/and learning difficulties, who are often discriminated in the schools with consequent loss of human capital and difficulties for the work.