www.empat-ic.eu
Project funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme
Empowering Autonomous Learning through Information Competencies
Information Literacy in the four learning sectors (school, higher education, vocational education and training,
and adult/lifelong learning)
Non-‐sector specific recommendations to Policy Makers made by final conference participants
EMPATIC hosted two events for policy makers and representatives of education, national and international institutions to verify findings and recommendations. The first, the Department of Educational Studies of Ghent University in cooperation with the EMPATIC and EMSOC teams organized the International Conference “Literacy and Society, Culture, Media, & Education” (http://www.literacyconference2012.ugent.be/), held 9 -‐ 11 February 2012 in Ghent, Belgium. The second, that of the Final Conference was held in conjunction with EMMILE (the European Meeting on Media and Information Literacy), Milan 27 -‐ 29 February 2012.
As a result the following general recommendations of both strategic and tactical nature have been formulated:
1. Information Literacy is vital for the today’s society in Europe and as such should be developed and promoted in different contexts and by various means.
2. The importance of Information Literacy needs to be publicized not only to governments, ministries and policy makers at national and EU levels but also to local authorities, businesses, small social groups and all citizens.
3. The strategy of IL development should encompass two main lines of action:
a. IL awareness building among authorities and governments at national and European levels
b. Substantial, real work, “step by step”, “project by project” on the local level by individual schools, universities, libraries, etc.
4. Most participants expressed the feeling that “slow” strategy, based on “small projects” addressed to different target groups, communities, professions, etc. would be more effective than having a central EU body responsible for the IL development or the formal European IL policy directives. Thus, the “IL awareness building” and “central goals” approach clearly prevailed over the “central steering” one. Also, having clearly stated Information Literacy goals (national, European) may help to convince/influence local authorities to support IL development programmes.
5. “Incentives work better than orders”, meaning that IL development policy based on incentives for those who introduce IL (teachers, librarians, businesses, local authorities) would be an effective strategy.
6. EMPATIC had started a process for the identification of past experience and development of case studies of good practice through EC-‐funded programmes. However, this approach should be extended to all known IL and Information Competencies projects. This is important for policy makers.
The main purpose of the EMPATIC recommendations is to stimulate action
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