European Youth Panel on Widening Participation

Today the results from our sixth European Youth Panel are published. This time around, we have asked our almost 200 panelists to give us their opinion on young peoples’ participation in higher education and how to make it more democratic and inclusive. A large majority of our respondents agree that it is important for democracy to increase participation in higher education for individuals from non-academic family backgrounds. Yet the full answers show that the issue is a complex one. One from the minority argues cogently:

“No. Democracy is built upon civic consciousness and basic literacy. People do not need to possess a degree to participate in democratic procedure. What really matters is culture and philosophy, which would make people feel responsible for the things happening around and thus, vote and run for offices.”

This and the other thoughts of the European Youth Panel will be considered by our Youth Fellows as they develop the third IYTT Policy Brief. You can read the full results from the survey here.