Note: This is an invitation-only seminar for European educationalists. If you would like to know more or contact the organisers, please email us here. We welcome all members of the public to join our public conference on the following day - details here. 

About

“Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it, and save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.”
Hannah Arendt

Europe has wasted decades miseducating our young people. We have let down repeated generations with an education which is lacking quality, lacking content, lacking morality, and lacking confidence about the future. The results are sadly clear to see: declining standards, teachers who lack authority in the classroom, pupils who know little of our history and values, and generations beset by mental health crises and fear of the future. 

As educational standards have declined and intellectual content has seeped out of the classroom, education has become increasingly colonised by controversial ideological agendas. It seems today that young people are more likely to be able to name 25 genders than 25 past rulers of their country. In the place of an education that celebrates national and European achievements, and transmits the legacy of the past to young people to make their own, education is weighed down by lessons on everything from “emotional intelligence” to “financial literacy” – anything but knowledge. 

The classroom is perhaps the most important battleground of the contemporary culture war. Unless Europe can address declining standards, the de-valuing of knowledge, education’s takeover by psychology, and above all the politicisation of the curriculum by hostile ideologies, the potential of generation after generation will be lost.

This conference is a chance to understand the scale of the challenge facing European education and how we can restore the proper role of education: where high intellectual standards, knowledge of Europe’s achievements, genuine excellence and creativity, and the authority of teachers and adults takes centre stage – and where extreme ideologies, from transgenderism to digitalisation, are side-lined.  

Programme

08.30
Registration

09.00
Opening remarks

  • Jacob Reynolds, head of policy, MCC Brussels

09.15
Keynote: European context of education 

  • Professor Frank Füredi, executive director, MCC Brussels

09.35
Panel 1: Western European challenges 

  • Axelle Girard, executive director, Créer son école-Educ'France,
  • Anthony O'Hear, professor of Philosophy, University of Buckingham
  • Moderator: Thibaud Gibelin, visiting fellow, MCC

10.05
Q&A

10.20
Coffee break

10.50
Panel 2: Central European answers

  • János Setényi, director, MCC Learning Institute 
  • Filip Ludwin, prodirector, Collegium Intermarium 
  • Marek Novák, Ladislaw Hanus Institute
  • Martin Luteran, rector, Kolégium Antona Neuwirtha 
  • Moderator: Dénes Nagy, project manager, Centre for Fundamental Rights,

11.30
Q&A

11.45
Panel 3: Threats and Answers Overseas 

  • Jonathan Butcher, senior research fellow, Heritage Foundation
  • Paige MacPherson, associate director, Fraser Institute

12.05
Q&A

12.20
Lunch

13.20
Discussion: Authority, judgement and the relationship between education and the state

  • Introduction: Alka Sehgal Cuthbert, author, What should schools teach; director, Don’t Divide Us 
  • Moderator: Jacob Reynolds, head of policy, MCC Brussels

14.20
Panel 4: The obstacles to the transmission of the legacy of the past 

  • Szabolcs Nagypál, Leader, MCC School of Law
  • Joanna Williams, founder, Cieo, author, How Woke Won; columnist, Spiked 

14.40
Q&A

14.55
Discussion: What would a 21st century classical curriculum look like? Teaching Western Civilisation and the Classics. 

  • Professor Frank Füredi, executive director, MCC Brussels

15.55
Coffee break

16.10
Workshop - What is the Conservative Approach to Education? 

  • Facilitator: János Setényi, director, MCC Learning Institute
  • Output: Common declaration on education

17.15
Concluding remarks

  • Professor Frank Füredi, executive director, MCC Brussels
  • János Setényi, director, MCC Learning Institute

17.30
Wine reception

Time TBC
Joint dinner