Last week, Plataforma per la Llengua attended the sixth annual meeting of the education group of FUEN, the Federal Union of European Nationalities, one of the main organisations protecting national and language minorities. The meeting, held in the Finnish capital Helsinki from Monday (8th) to Thursday (11th) gave participants a first-hand look at the situation of the Swedish-speaking minority and allowed them to share experiences on education with other European minorities. Marc Guevara, operational head of the Education and Universities section at Plataforma per la Llengua, was the organisation's representative. He spoke to condemn the judicial and political persecution suffered by schooling in Catalan in Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and the Valencian region.
This year's meeting focused on primary schools, in contrast to last year's, held in Sibiu (Hermanstadt in German), in the historic region of Transylvania (Romania), which concentrated on infant education. This year, Guevara met about 20 representatives of 15 language or national minorities from 13 different States: Montenegrins from Albania, Russians from Estonia, Slovaks and Germans from Hungary, Alsatians from France, Danes from Germany, Sorbs from Lusatia (Germany), and Turks from Western Thrace (Greece). The meeting was chaired by the general secretary of FUEN, Éva Pénzes, and the two vice-presidents of the network, Gösta Tosft and Daniel Alfreider.
Photo of the FUEN education working group. The whole photo album can be found on their website
Alfreider, who is also spokesperson for the education working group, officially opened the meeting on Tuesday (9th), accompanied by Niklas Wahlström, head of education at Friends of Swedish Public Schooling, an association to promote the schooling of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland, and the director and deputy director of the Finnish National Education Agency, Ulla-Maj Engelhom and Yvonne Nummela. The participants then took a deeper look at the educational landscape for the Swedish-speaking minority with Anna Jungner-Nordgren, Ulla-Jill Karlsson and Berndt-Johan Lindström. Jungner-Nordgren is responsible for international relations at Folktinget, the consultative parliament of the Swedish-speaking minority, and vice-president of the European Network for the Promotion of Linguistic Diversity (NPLD), while Karlsson is head of the Swedish Unit of the Ministry of Education, and Lindström is ombudsman for educational issues at the Swedish Cultural Foundation.
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The education working sessions, devoted to the challenges of the educational system for the Swedish minority and also to the educational situation of the representatives' minorities, also began on Tuesday, at noon. Here, Marc Guevara was able to talk about the persecution of the language in schools in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands and the new Valencian White Paper on Education.
On Wednesday (10th), the representatives visited a primary school for the Swedish-speaking minority in Espoo, Finland's second largest city, and were able to speak with several teachers as well as the head, who presented the school's educational project and the Swedish immersion methodology applied at the centre, which educates around 1,800 pupils. The representatives went into some classrooms and saw the innovative methods of some teachers at first hand. In the afternoon, the Friends of Swedish Public Schooling association organised a session on the future of Swedish schooling, featuring a keynote speech by the head of the skills analysis team at the OECD, Francesca Borgonovi. The final day of the meeting, Thursday, was for sharing conclusions and confirming that, beyond the different situations faced by the minorities, some of them have developed many good practices that can serve as examples for everyone.
Plataforma per la Llengua, an associate member of the FUEN since the end of 2022 and support member since 2018
Plataforma per la Llengua has been an associate member of the Federal Union of European Nationalities (FUEN) since October 2022, after being a supporting member since 2018. FUEN is the main defender of national minorities and indigenous language groups in Europe, and brings together more than 100 organisations from 36 European States. The organisation began in Versailles in 1949 to provide different nations and minorities with a proper role after the Second World War, and it has recently coordinated initiatives such as the Minority Safepack, a Europe-wide legislative initiative to improve protection for minorities.
FUEN is now the voice of national, ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities in international organisations such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the United Nations (UN), where it has consultative status. The organisation also has participatory status in the European Union and the Council of Europe.
