InterParents Activities during the Fall 2020
InterParents (IP) has been working hard to remain a strong virtual presence and voice for parents at the OSGES, despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, IP has been particularly active in the work done on creating a new system-wide Distance Learning Policy, which was just approved at the December eBoard of Governors meeting on 2-3 December. InterParents also presented a record number of interventions at this year’s Joint Teaching Committee (JTC) held in early October on issues ranging from the need for a stronger distance learning policy and the flawed New Marking Scale Equivalence Tables of several Member States to the need to extend protections also to pupils living with medically-certified vulnerable family members and the need to create a new policy for absent students with new categories of absence and presence (e.g. “virtually present”) in the age of distance learning at the European Schools.
At the eBoard of Governors (eBoG) held in early December, the major issues for which InterParents held interventions included: (1) the New Marking Scale and Equivalence Tables. Currently, 2/3 of Member States have yet to produce a new NMS equivalence table or they have produced a flawed equivalence table, both of which will severely disadvantage BAC 2021 graduates with final marks based on the NMS; (2) the continuing lack of Bac preparations for the 2020-2021 year and unresolved assessment issues more generally; (3) the problem of persistent and serious overcrowding in the Brussels school system, (4) the role of the new temporary school at the NATO site in Evere, and the continuing need for a 5th school, since more school capacity will already be needed for 2021-2022, and (5) revision of the Educational Support Policy (SEN) in line with the Action Plan on Educational Support and Inclusive Education adopted by the Board of Governors in April 2019.