Anja Balanskat from the EUN Office presented the Insight Country Reports which give regular updates on the state of eLearning policies in EUN Member Countries. A survey was recently conducted to see how the Country Reports are used and how they could be improved. Overall the reports are perceived as useful by Ministries of Education but improvements can be made. The discussion of the survey findings by PIC members point to the need for having a short description of latest developments and policy prirorities in the beginning of each report to make them more useful to policy makers. An effort should also be made to make the collection of data easier for Ministries of Education which requires feedback from Ministries and agencies dealing with the reports as well as regular consultation. Among the recommendations included improving the peer review of the reports within the ministries to improve quality, raise the number of contributions and extending the use of the Country Reports.

Alan McCluskey, Chair of the PIC, offered definitions of the notions of policy and practice. He mentioned that practice is the organized way, deeply rooted in experience and habits, in which individuals or groups carry out activities. Policy aims to give formalised goals for a system and how these goals can be reached. While policy seeks to structure specific areas of practice, there is an obvious gap between the aims and goals of policy makers and the actual practice on the ground as practice is often perceived as resistant to change and consequently to policy.

This is why the link between policy, decided at the higher level, and practice which is the concrete implementation on the ground should be strengthened. The aim of policy makers is to make policy based on practical observation but as a PIC representative suggested, there can be a discrepancy between what is expected from policy makers at a political level or as a civil servant and what they feel to be the actual needs on the ground.

Exemplifying policy 
The second part of the meeting was aimed at giving examples of policy and how they relate to practice. Mick James from the British agency for ICT in education, BECTA, explained how the Test Bed schools project was developed in England to measure the impact of ICT on teaching and learning. Findings show noticeable improvement in learners’ attention in class thanks to the use of presentation technologies, improvement in pupils’ attendance and an overall positive impact on attainment levels.

Another example of how practice can help shape policy was given by Bert Jaap van Oel from the Dutch Inspectorate of Education. He explained that in the past Dutch schools would have to apply for ICT funding based on an application as well as on a precise plan on the actual use of the funds; now schools receive a lump sum of money for the whole school which then has to be allocated among different needs including ICT. Some PIC members questioned why the plan was scrapped as it permitted the school to clarify its ICT vision before receiving funding. One of the reasons was that not all schools would benefit from the scheme as only those who applied could benefit from it. A PIC representative pointed out that the scheme “allowed for a good way to have an eLearning plan by a school and use as a tool for policy making”.

As a conclusion to the discussion on policy and practice,, Alan McCluskey talked about two metaphors for organisations: mechanical systems and living systems, making particular reference to chaos theory and the idea of emergence of new activities from complex systems. This allowed some reflection on how policy could be put into practice in complex systems. Alan McCluskey concluded by suggesting that handling the education system as a machine had its limitations and that a lot could be learnt from adopting the perspective of the system as a living organism.

At the meeting, Marc Durando, EUN Executive Director, Roger Blamire and Anja Balanskat also from the EUN Office, presented planned work on strengthening work on practice and the PIC role related to it. Marc Durando pointed out that the need for such an observatory stems from the fact that EUN is doing a lot on policy but there is a need to look at practice more closely to support and strengthen existing and future school networks for instance.

PIC representatives pointed out that in order to create successful networks for schools, provide them with useful services, a reflexion on what makes successful network is needed. It was noted for instance that the ENIS network (Network of Innovative Schools) has been successful and sustainable in a number of countries.

Among the activities which could provide valuable services for schools are for instance summer schools for teachers. Another possible area of research is fostering peer networks among teachers which would allow for the sharing of practice with other schools.

The EUN Office concluded by inviting PIC members to step in the reflexion period to help having a clear outlook on what are the needs for schools in order to create appropriate and valuable services for them. Additionally, PIC members felt they could best contribute to the work of EUN on the observatory by pursuing their reflection on the relationship between policy and practice.

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