On 1^st February, ESU launched a new project, “Equity through E-learning” after a kick-off meeting in Brussels. Through this project, ESU intends to address one of the core problems faced by the student body today: that in all European countries a great number of groups in society that have the capabilities to start and complete a degree in higher education are excluded from doing so. Increasing equal opportunities has always been a priority area of the student movement, and thus ESU has built up a significant knowledge library on this topic. By being active in institutional governance structures, national consultation structures and civil society in general, student unions have a direct influence on the equity and efficiency policies. The project 'equity through e-learning' aims to train student representatives to help and implement policies in order to increase equity and efficiency in their own higher education institutions and countries. Existing and new research on increasing equity in higher education will be disseminated to all levels of student representation, on the national, institutional, faculty and programme levels. The project will also set up a European Student Trainer Network, which train the student representatives and will use an Elearning platform to create an innovative learning experience. The platform will be used as a preparation and as a follow up to the regional trainings in order to help them develop national action plans for equity and efficiency in European higher education systems. The project is being realised with a number of partners, namely ANOSR, SRVS, LSVb and OeH (our member unions in Romania, Slovakia, the Netherlands and Austria respectively) and together with another two organisations who specialise in e-learning, namely SCIENTER from Italy and MENON Network based in Brussels.

Next steps:

In the coming weeks, the project will kick into full gear. A research team of 9 people has been recruited to do an extensive literature review of the topic, encompassing approximately 150 articles – work which will be done by the beginning of April. Members are also being currently invited to join the projects’ advisory board which will have its first meeting in early April. Finally, ESU will be hosting a keynote conference on Equity in Higher Education in Slovakia from 5^th May – 8^th May. The second phase of the project will be kicked off in June, with a training for trainers and the development of new training materials.

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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.