All of these topics generated lively debates and many more closely related discussions on, for example: delivery approaches, appropriate methodologies, needs assessment strategies and the challenges of educating for ‘democracy’ when the concept of democracy is so elusive anyway.
To give the Civic Education project a context, an overview of the BRIDGE Project Elections Curriculum was provided (how it was conceived, developed, changed over time, how the governance structure worked/evolved, etc). It was explained that the BRIDGE ‘Elections’ Curriculum Project is separate to the BRIDGE Civic Education Project. The BRIDGE Civic Education Project aims to expand the ‘BRIDGE’ curriculum into developing a curriculum/component for ‘Democracy’ and ‘Governance’ (the ‘D’ and ‘G’ part of the BRIDGE Project acronym). Once developed, this component will be formally submitted to the BRIDGE partners for possible inclusion into the full BRIDGE Project and made available to the rest of the world.
The BRIDGE Civic Education Project Team is now trying to capture the essence of the discussions and convert these into working documents that will shape the project and will distribute these to the meeting recipients (the Project Advisory Committee), and to other interested stakeholders.
The next task for the BRIDGE Project Civic Education Project Team is to plan for the next phase of the project which includes selecting a writing team and the organisation of the first writers meeting in December.
