Brussels MIPIE Conference

The first MIPIE project conference was held on 2nd and 3rd December 2010 in Brussels, Belgium.

The Conference was co-hosted by representatives of the Ministries of Education of the Flemish and French speaking communities of Belgium and the European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education.

The conference was an event in line with the Belgium priorities for the Presidency of the EU, namely the promotion of social cohesion.

The aim of this conference was to identify what data and detailed information European policy makers need in order to map developments in the implementation of legislation and policy for inclusion.

During the conference in Belgium, policy makers from the participating countries reflected upon their current information collection and current and future requirements – the ‘what’ of identifying and mapping developments towards inclusive education – and identified key issues, priorities and questions associated with such data collection.

Summaries of all of these sessions as well as an overview of country priorities for data collection and key messages for future work are presented in the Brussels Conference report.

The conference was attended by over 40 Participants 

The various inputs given during the conference Programme are available to download as pdf files in the section below. Please contact the Agency Secretariat (secretariat@european-agency.org) if you want to receive these files in a different format.

Conference Presentations

Opening Session 

Welcome and introduction to the topic from:

Minister Marie-Dominique Simonet, French speaking community of Belgium - message in English and French 

Mr. Wim Van Rompu, Cabinet member of Minister Pascal Smet, Flemish speaking community of Belgium

Ms. Belén Bernaldo de Quirós, Head of Unit Jean Monnet programme, partnerships and relations, DG-EAC 

Mr. Jørgen Greve, Chairman, European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education

Panel Session 

Reflections on mapping education policy from different perspectives, chaired by Cor Meijer, Agency Director:

Ms. Natalie Verstraete, Head of Unit International Relations, Ministry of Education and Training, Flemish speaking community of Belgium: Improving policy making through benchmarking in education

Message from: Mr. Zoltán Gloviczki, Deputy State Secretary for Education, Ministry of National Resources, Hungary: Improving education though the use of quality assurance procedures

Mr. Lars Jakobsen, Analysis and Studies Unit, DG-EAC: Implementing the open method of co-ordination 

Mr. Jean-François Delsarte, Cabinet Member of Minister Marie-Dominique Simonet, French speaking community of Belgium: Planning and monitoring legislation and policy

Plenary Inputs 

Mapping the Implementation of Policy for Inclusive Education:

Ms. Lene Mejer, Eurostat Education, Culture and Science Statistics: The current work of Eurostat in relation to the Council request for indicator information in the field

Mr. Serge Ebersold, MIPIE Project Consultant: The added value of longitudinal studies involving data collection and analysis

Mr. Harald Weber, Agency Project Manager: The Agency Indicators for Inclusive Education project work

Ms. Amanda Watkins, Agency Project Manager: The Agency Special Needs Education Country Data collection 

The MIPIE Project Team: Overview of the project aims and objectives 

Country Feedback Session

Plenary Feedback on initial themes emerging from country presentations and discussions.