EUROSCOLA 2015 RULES
The European Parliament Information Office in Spain, together with the Representation of the European Commission in Spain and the Secretary of State for the European Union, announces the 21stedition of Euroscola Contest devoted to the European Year of Development 2015.
“A life of dignity for all: eradicating poverty and
supporting sustainable development” is one of the main
messages to be transmitted to the European society during this year. The main goals for this year are to inform about the cooperation of the European Union (EU) in poverty eradication inside and outside Europe and about the role of the EU as the biggest donor of the official development assistance in the world; to encourage civic participation; to foster a sense of responsibility among the citizens, to sensitise the public opinion about the role of cooperation, to achieve public commitment and to highlight the importance of the contribution of the youth.
The European Parliament has insisted on centring this European year on the dignity of each human being on this planet, thus choosing as its motto “our world, our dignity, our future”
And our yearly competition will deal with these issues, centred on informing the youth and approaching them to the chances of participating in the cooperation towards development, encouraging critical thinking and the sense of responsibility and inviting the education sector to put into effect solidarity projects contributing towards shaping a fairer, more stable and more sustainable future for all the human race.
We will also work in order to publish the European development cooperation programmes and the European strategies to combat poverty inside and outside the EU.
The Competition will take place on an online educational interactive platform: www.euro-scola.com
The Contest seeks to:
Promote the use of the Internet and new technologies as educational tools.
Get the EU closer to the young people, improving their knowledge of Europe and their involvement in its building. Promote the learning of European languages as an essential
tool to achieve a united Europe. To this end, the Contest will take place in English too.
It is essential that the participating students speak other European languages, since the winners attending Euroscola Programme in Strasbourg will have to interact with contestants from other countries using English or French. Euroscola 2015 will adopt a multilingual integrationist approach which reflects the wealth of linguistic diversity, and the academic reality of students in Spain. The knowledge of foreign languages brings us together and increases our prospects. Although participants will have to choose one language to compete in (Spanish, Catalonian or English), they will be able to do work or activities towards the Final Stage of the Contest in Galician, Basque, Catalonian or Valencian, as official languages in their Autonomous Communities.
The teams will also be able to express themselves or complete part of the work or activities done towards the Final Stage of the Contest
using other European Union official languages, such as French, Italian and German. This will depend on the academic options provided at their schools, in agreement with the option to study two foreign languages available in Spain, as fostered by the EU, from secondary education onwards.
REGISTRATIONS
Registration in the Competition will be performed directly online at
www.euro-scola.com
The competition is open to all Secondary Schools (ESO), High Schools and Intermediate Vocational Training Centres located within the Spanish territory.
Contestants must register as teams comprising 10 students (aged 15 to 18) and a teacher, who will be the team leader and its representative before the organisation of Euroscola. However, at the school internal level, work can be jointly coordinated by several teachers.
The same teacher can register as many teams as they can put together, and they will be in charge/accountable for all of them. However, only one team per school may compete for the final prize, based on the highest number of points scored.
Registration can be completed online via the Competition website from October 13th 2014 to March 2nd 2015.
The email address provided by the teacher acting as team leader when entering the team for the Competition will be the only one
used by the organisers for all kinds of communications during the competition.
COMPETITION
The competition will start on January 19th and it will finish on April 14th.
Initial stage:
This stage will cover from 19th January to 20th March. It will comprise the following tasks:
Reading the editions of the online newspaper “Euroscolos 2015”, watching audiovisual material, following the topics of the Contest through Euroscola’s accounts in diverse social networks and performing an objective test.
Euroscolos 2015 online newspaper will be available in Euroscola website. All participating teams will have access to the same material through this website.
The teams will only need to follow Euroscola in one of the existing social networks, since the same information will be posted in Facebook and Twitter.
Familiarity with the contents of Euroscolos 2015 online newspaper, as well as its links and audiovisual materials, will be evaluated at the end of this stage with an objective test.
Preparation of the activity/activities for the Final Stage: Beginning of planning and communication tasks
required to do the activities of the final stage. During that stage, the teams will have to make a blog where they will reflect the activities done in relation to the topics of the Contest.
Final stage:
This stage will start on March 24th and finish on April 14th. The final stage comprises the following tasks:
Creating a blog in which the initiative developed by each team will be posted. The teams can use any free of charge platform allowing the creation and hosting of blogs, such as: WordPress, Blogger, Livejournal, Xanga, Edublogs, or any other technological platform they might choose as directed by their leading teacher and/or with the help of the technology teacher at their school.
Designing a plan for the promotion and dissemination of their initiative: Depending on the activity they choose, each team will have to devise how to gain as much exposure as possible.
Liaising with the Europe Direct centres in their area in order to inform them about the initiative/the activities to be performed, always taking into account the actual support and dissemination means of these European information centres. Contact information for all the Europe Direct centres located in Spain will be posted on the Euroscola website.
Carrying out the activities/initiatives suggested in relation with the projects for development cooperation and
awareness raising in the educational community, as well as proving their performance through photos, videos, links etc.
Should the team be willing to submit to the Competition solidarity projects in which the school is already involved, they should meet the following requirements:
The project should be implemented during the term of this Competition.
Euroscola team should be directly involved in the project providing new proposals for the expansion/improvement of the solidarity project in which the school is already working. Develop the blog within the framework of this Competition.
Work at school on the debate suggested by this Competition, i.e. the challenge of cooperation for a fairer, more stable and more sustainable future for all the human race, as well as knowing the European development cooperation programmes and the European strategies to combat poverty inside and outside the EU.
The blogs should be published between March 24th and April 14th. The teams will receive detailed instructions on how to post their blog’s URL on the Euroscola website. This will be the only communication format accepted by the Contest organisers.
A report on the execution of their proposed initiative must be posted by each team by April 14th at 6 p.m. This report should include all the information available on media mentions (school website or blog, school magazine, local printed or online press, etc.) about the initiative or the activities of the team, as well as photos or videos showing that the initiative actually took place.
Although any motivated teacher may lead the teams, a cross-curricular approach of the competition is highly recommended. Teams are advised to contact and work together with their school's Technology teachers in order to select the platform to be used to develop and host their blog. Likewise, the teams are encouraged to seek counsel from their teachers of Ethics, Religion, History of Religions, Language, Arts, Foreign Languages or from any other teacher at school whose help or guidance might provide the benefit of a better final result for the assignment.
All the teams entering the competition must observe all the legal rules related to the use of the resources by minors, as well as the respect for the rights to privacy and copyright. The teachers leading the teams are in charge of instructing the young team members in safe Internet browsing techniques that are to be used at all times. They will also be responsible for securing the minors guardians or legal representatives’ consent, if necessary, for the posting of images, photos or videos related to their participation in the Euroscola 2015 competition.
EUROSCOLA competition is an educational project fostering “Education in Values”. All works and proposals must use a correct language, reflect values of tolerance and respect, be the result of the students’ reflection and of their original and documented proposals, and also show their involvement. Therefore, "plagiarised/copied" works or works with no quality at all or with such a poor quality that they are testament to a lack of review work by the team itself, or else having been done by others (even if they belong to the same school) without active involvement of the team members will be disqualified. Likewise, those projects posting messages, images or other material that might be offensive or disrespectful will also be disqualified.
All teams entering the competition are reminded to quote their sources at all times when publishing proposals including surveys, interviews, photos or videos.
The European Parliament Information Office in Spain accepts no liability whatsoever for the ideas or opinions presented by the teams in their blogs or in any other promotion and dissemination media employed.
Anyway, it is the team leaders’ responsibility to explain to the teams entering the competition how important it is to use a correct language and that the activities presented should reflect educational values of tolerance and respect. Awareness should be raised among the students of the significance of the Internet safety rules: always think before posting photos, videos or opinions on the Internet and never publish messages, images or other materials that might be considered offensive or disrespectful.
SCORES
The value of the activities proposed in the Contest, in relation with the final score, will be as follows:
• The knowledge displayed by the teams regarding the topics of the Competition, presented during the Initial Stage, will be graded according to their performance in an objective knowledge assessment (test). This will represent 50% of the final score. Scores will be notified individually to each team
• A jury will assess the initiatives/activities done towards the Final Stage in relation with the topics of this Contest, which include planning, progress, start-up, impact, communication or
dissemination, as well as a final initiative completion report through the blogs presented by each team. This score will represent 50% of the final score.
The Jury will rate the initiatives shown in the blog according to the: •Originality of the initiative: 5 points
• Quality of the blog and of the material posted in it: 5 points • Inclusion of the values of the European Union: 5 points • Performance and impact of the initiative: 5 points
Once the jury has scored the initiatives reflected in the blogs, plus the scores of the objective test, a list of schools whose teams have become winners or finalists or who have been among the top five teams in their Autonomous Communities and Cities will be published on the website of the Contest. In case the initiative(s)/activity(ies) and the results of the final test fail to reach a minimum quality in a particular Autonomous Community or City, the Jury will be able to declare the Contest void in this Autonomous Community or City.
The Jury’s decision cannot be contested.
PRIZES
The prize for the winners will be taking part in the Euroscola Programme at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and they will receive a grant to help with the travel expenses. The amount of this grant will be determined based on the distance between the city where the school is located and the city of Strasbourg.
Participating in the Euroscola Programme is a unique, unforgettable experience that gives students the opportunity to experience the European integration project first-hand. The winners of the Competition in Spain will be able to experience, together with the winning teams from other EU countries, what it feels like to become a Member of the European Parliament for a day at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
The students will get to know the work that is done at the European Parliament first-hand by debating topics of interest for young people, engaging in negotiations with participants from other countries, and finally voting and reaching agreements on hot issues for Europe.
The Euroscola Programme gives students the chance to interact and exchange views using a second language. These young students also get to represent their school and their region in a knowledge-sharing exercise that illustrates the diversity of the peoples of Europe and fosters cultural exchange.
The contestants will address the Parliament and speak in Parliament Committees meetings to debate and vote resolutions on pressing issues; they will also practise foreign languages and share their ideas with young people from other EU countries. The teachers will also be given a chance to meet colleagues from other European countries and to share classroom practices and educational information.
Further information on the Euroscola Programme is available on the Euroscola section of the European Parliament website:
There will be one finalist from each Autonomous Community. The top ten(10) teams from all the finalists will be the winners. Each winner team must come from a different Autonomous Community. Having regard for foreign languages, there will also be a prize for the two (2) teams with the highest score among those competing in English, regardless of whether a team of the same Autonomous Community has won the competition in Spanish or Catalan
Apart from their team members, each winning team may invite a further 14 students and 1 teacher from their school to take part in the programme. The school is responsible for coordinating the participation of the team.
So that a new school can get to know the European Parliament with every new edition of the Euroscola, only those schools that have not won the competition in the 2011, 2012, 2013 or 2014 editions may compete for the final prize. However, the aforementioned schools may opt for the prizes given by each Autonomous Community or partner institutions, as these deem appropriate.
The European Parliament’s Information Office in Spain will provide the contact details of all the winning teams to the European Parliament Office in Strasbourg. Those responsible for the European Parliament Office in Strasbourg will contact the winning teams to make the appropriate arrangements for their participation in the Euroscola Programme.
The trip and the participation in the Euroscola Programme in Strasbourg will take place during the 2015/2016 academic year, or else during the second term of 2016, should such extension be requested by a large number of participants. Once a provisional schedule for Euroscola sessions has been drawn up, all the leaders of the winning teams will be simultaneously sent an
email by the European Parliament’s Information Office in Spain informing them about those dates. The dates for the participation will be chosen depending on the date of submission of the applications.
The European Parliament reserves the right to cancel or modify the terms of participation in the Euroscola programme in case of force majeure.
The European Parliament’s Information Office in Spain invites multiple national and regional organisations with interests in the topics of the contest to promote the Contest and to contribute additional prizes. These prizes will reach the teams through the corresponding Autonomous Community. Likewise, the students and teachers of the top five teams of each Autonomous Community will receive a European Parliament Diploma (one diploma per team). Euroscola organisers assume no liability in connection with prizes and conditions set forth by partner institutions and contributors. An email address will be made available for the teams on the competition website to make enquiries and report technical issues, provided these are made with sufficient time that a solution can be found and that it has no impact on equal competition terms for all teams.
Once published, the list of winners and runner-up teams will be final.
iPad FOR THE TEACHERS
All the teachers leading teams completing the final stage of Euroscola will enter a raffle to win an iPad. According to the regulations in effect, a notary public will oversee the raffle is done appropriately and legally.
The result of the raffle will be announced directly to the winner by the organisers and will be made public on Euroscola's accounts in the social networks.
