Minister to address international education planning conference

Education Minister Martin McGuinness is to address an audience of educationalists from across the UK, Ireland and Europe tonight.

The international conference taking place at the Slieve Donard Hotel in Newcastle, County Down, is aimed at setting an agenda for further joint working on education across the areas.

Addressing delegates at the conference’s closing dinner Mr McGuinness will emphasis the importance of international co-operation and partnerships in education. The Minister will also outline how the local education system has tried to ensure that young people are enabled to "handle conflict" by taking pride in their own culture and by accepting other people’s backgrounds.

These are to be reflected in the current review of the schools’ curriculum, which will introduce three new elements – personal development, education for employability, and citizenship.

The Minister will call on teachers to engage with young people as "social and civil beings who need to understand the society they live in and who need the skills and knowledge to enable them to transcend their past".

The conference was organised by the South Eastern Education and Library Board’s International Unit.

Attending the conference are delegates from Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as Ireland and Scotland.

Earlier in the day the Education Minister toured a number of schools in the south Down Area, where he opened a new playground for a playgroup in Killough, and congratulated a pupil at an Irish-medium Nursery school who won first prize in an all-Ireland art competition.

(SP)