UWC International Congress 2024
> IN THIS SECTION
Education as a Force
Happening once every six years*, the next UWC International Congress will take place on 29 February - 2 March 2024 in Phuket, Thailand. The event represents the culmination of the UWC movement’s 60th anniversary celebrations, and will be our first ever hybrid congress, offering the opportunity for even great participation across the UWC community.
Inspired by the words ‘Education as a Force’, the UWC International Congress 2024 will bring together UWC's educational and governance leaders alongside partners, supporters, and representatives of all UWC stakeholder groups, to discuss the future of education and re-align our educational model to the greatest needs of our time. Through a combination of keynote sessions, panel discussions, workshops and impact talks, we will rethink what we do, mobilise our ambition, and re-energise around our mission and strategy to develop shared solutions to shared challenges.
The programme will include sessions across five thematic tracks:
-
Curriculum, Teaching & Learning: How can UWC play a more active role in promoting peace and sustainability through education, enabling a new generation of young people to connect learning to action for the advancement of life, work, nature and society? What kind of academic environment and learning culture do we want to foster? And how can we ensure that our schools deliberately transmit our values and interpret the UWC educational model from the early years all the way through the IBDP/CP years?
-
Admissions: How can we rethink the promotion, selection and onboarding of students to UWC, bearing in mind the vital role our largely volunteer-run national committees play is their selection? How can we apply core selection criteria consistently across different contexts? How can we attract an even wider diversity of students, and what is the best and most consistent way to assess their financial needs?
-
Wellbeing: How can we make sure that the pursuit of a UWC education does not come at the sacrifice of children’s mental health and wellbeing? How might we restructure educational and communal spaces; reprioritise the wellbeing of teachers and support staff; and ensure common approaches to safeguarding to create a culture of mental health and wellbeing support?
-
Financial Sustainability: How can UWC continue to demonstrate its commitment to deliberate diversity through needs-based scholarships at a time of rising costs? How might we attract further philanthropic support for long-term scholarship provision, and how can the global endowment fund contribute to the long-term financial sustainability of UWC?
-
Educational Leadership & Partnerships: How might UWC schools and colleges strengthen their partnerships with local and national governments to transform in-country education? And how might the UWC movement partner with like-minded organisations to expand its influence, improving the delivery of high-quality education globally?
Between October 2023 and February 2024, delegates will also engage in a series of pre-Congress discussions on each of these tracks.
* The last UWC International Congress was held in Trieste, Italy, in October 2016. Disruptions due to COVID-19 forced us to reschedule the next Congress in 2024.