Ghent Hub helps education to tackle social inequality in learning

The coronavirus crisis has made it painfully clear that education can sometimes be challenging for people in vulnerable situations.

Ghent organisations, academics, entrepreneurs, citizens and policymakers have come together in the Hub ‘Developing in Diversity’ to create solutions for social inequality in education. They brainstorm about new ideas, put those ideas into practice, or ensure that well-functioning initiatives are copied. Together, they tackle concrete challenges.

Inequality in education

Providing all children, young people and adults with equal opportunities to learn and develop poses a major challenge to educators. The coronavirus crisis has once more made this clear. Pupils living in vulnerable home situations are at risk of falling behind (even more). The Ghent University and the City of Ghent bring together experts, field workers and policymakers in a Hub to develop solutions.

In the summer of 2020, they designed a summer school to address learning disadvantages and well-being of young people in vulnerable situations. This year, they are working on a way to prevent school drop-out among unaccompanied foreign minors. The Hub also provides tips to educationalists in a blog. Tricky educational topics such as key transition years, opportunities for practising Dutch, the digital gap and evaluation are discussed here (www.ontwikkelenindiversiteit.be).

In the course of this year, the Hub will define the challenges they will address in the coming trajectories.

Making use of diversity in education
In the coming years, the Hub aims to help Ghentians make innovative use of diversity in education. The Hub will enter into a discussion with as many people as possible to develop innovative and sustainable solutions. In a test phase, the Hub will try out the best ideas that result from these discussions. Scale-up support is possible for successful experiments.

“The hub is a space where innovative ideas can be tested in short-term experiments. We hope that these experiments will have a positive impact on the convictions, vision and policy with regard to diversity,” explains project coordinator Iris Vandevelde.

The Hub is a partnership between ‘Steunpunt Diversiteit & Leren’ (‘Centre for Diversity and Learning’ - Ghent University) and ‘Onderwijscentrum Gent’ (‘Ghent Centre for Educational Services’ - City of Ghent). At the end of 2021, HOGENT, Artevelde University of Applied Sciences and AUGent (Association Ghent University) will also join the initiative.

The blog articles and projects are available on www.ontwikkelenindiversiteit.be.

Ghent Hub helps education to tackle social inequality in learning

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