The members of the Education Committee of the Council of the European Union (EU) have been able to see in Melilla, “in practice and in a real way, many of the values that we have worked on during this Presidency”.
The Deputy Director General of the Educational Action Unit Abroad of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports, Andrés Contreras, in statements to the media, echoed the “gratitude” and “enthusiasm” that Melilla has caused to the representatives of Education of the 27 EU member countries.
“They are enormously grateful for the initiative we have had to be able to teach this part of Spain, this part of the European Union, where they are truly learning things that are surprising them,” he said.
Contreras referred to the visits that the members of the Education Committee of the Council of the EU carried out to the educational centers of Melilla, as well as the testimonies they heard at the Hospital del Rey. “They were enthusiastic and excited to see how many of the values we have worked on were put into practice and were real and really served what is the transformative power of education, which was one of the things that was most repeated yesterday, how education transforms lives, changes lives and transforms society,” he said.
Delving into this issue, the representative of the Ministry of Education, Vocational Training and Sports stressed that this trip has served to “put a face to the things they discuss in Brussels”, especially when “this Education Committee meets weekly to discuss the texts that the Education Ministers of the European Union are going to approve during their formal councils and entails a lot of work, because you have to discuss every word, you have to discuss every idea behind, to reach consensus”.
A conclave that “has been really fruitful”, said Contreras, who thanked Melilla, the Delegada of the Government, the educational community and the whole city for their reception and everything they have contributed.
Example of diversity
The Deputy Director-General of the Ministry’s Overseas Education Action Unit recalled that diversity is something that is all over Europe, so the presence of the representatives of the 27 EU Member States “thinks about the reality of their country and it is really interesting for them to share the vision we have together”.
As far as cultural diversity is concerned, “Melilla is a fantastic example”, he has made clear. “We have seen this coexistence between religions, which has impressed us a lot, also the coexistence between different cultures, different languages… It is truly an example to copy,” he stressed.
In fact, he explained that the one at Melilla has been for many advisors “one of the best practices they have found in all their visits”. Every six months, the representatives of the Member States visit one of the EU countries, to which the rotating Presidency belongs. Thus, after the end of the Spanish Presidency, the Belgian Presidency begins, and then the Hungarian Presidency begins, and so on.
Intense and fruitful days
The Government Delegate, Sabrina Moh, for her part, has valued the fact that Melilla has hosted these days of work of the Education Committee of the Council of the EU and that its members have been able to know in addition to their educational centers, the reality of our city, its peculiarities and singularities.
Some specificities, he added, that can also serve as a basis to continue working and addressing such important topics as Education, which is what we are working on in this Commission.
Therefore, a “very intense” agenda has been designed, so that the Committee “will have at the end of the day as much information as possible and, above all, experiences and personal experiences, which they have also been able to hear first-hand”.
Moh, has thanked the work that has been developed during all these months to be able to carry out this day in Melilla and that has been a real success. A meeting that has been “fruitful and productive” and that will serve “to continue working on all the strategic lines planned and to continue moving towards a better future”.
“We have always said that education is a fundamental tool to change society and that is what we are going to continue working on,” said the head of the Government Delegation.
In addition to working days and visits to educational centers, the Committee has visited the modernist Melilla and the old part of the city. In addition, last night, in the complex of the V Pino, they enjoyed an institutional dinner in which the Ballet of Colors made a representation of different dances of the cultures that make up Melilla. Today, at the hands of the Civil Guard Command, they visited the border perimeter.