The Future of Education

Education for active citizenship has become one of the key concepts and it may gain even more importance being an important aspect of preparing young people for the future, which is the original, primary goal of schools. Active citizenship is a complex concept, and is made up of several components: knowledge, skills, attitudes, values and identities. An important task of citizenship education is to facilitate participation, which can be achieved best through the use of interactive methods. Teacher training plays a key role in active citizenship education. Teachers need to acquire the necessary knowledge, but it is even more important that they should use new, interactive methods, thus making it possible for students to live in and experience democratic principles and models. A project “Learning by doing Europe” within the EU Jean Monnet Programme has been implemented by the Department of European Studies of Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. The project involved University professors, secondary school teachers, and students. The main aim of the project was to develop together suitable interactive methods and techniques to facilitate learning about EU matters across the curriculum and to stimulate students’ active participation.  The major impacts of the project were improved teaching quality and learning capacity, enhanced interest in European matters at secondary school level.  The project was acknowledged as a best practice by the European Commission. The paper will present the main results and lessons learnt from “Learning by doing Europe” project.