ICH-Bildung analyses the relevance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) resources as learning tools for the successful implementation of the Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning – A European Reference Framework (hereinafter the Reference Framework).

ICH-BILDUNG is a European Commission project within the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellowship Programme. It analyses the relevance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) resources as learning tools for the successful implementation of the Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning – A European Reference Framework (hereinafter the Reference Framework).

The Reference Framework is an EU-agreed way to address the impact of  globalization in education. It describes the type of knowledge, attitudes and skills (called ‘competencies’) that EU citizens should develop during their lives to successfully confront the challenges of globalisation.

Globalisation has an impact for every EU citizen with implications at an economic, social and individual level (employability, social cohesion, active citizenship and personal fulfilment). The Reference Framework addresses this European challenge and identifies 8 competencies as critical (i.e. ‘key’) to ensure one’s successful life in a knowledge society.

The contribution of ICH resources as learning tools to the European Framework is divided into two areas of impact:

1) The impact of ICH learning as a value-based approach to education and the effects on the strategic objectives defined by the Reference Framework: employability, social cohesion (i.e. integration into the labour market), active citizenship in a multicultural Europe and personal fulfilment, and

2) The impact  of ICH learning as a form of visual communication and the effects on the inter-disciplinary skills applied to the 8 Key Competencies detailed in the Reference Framework: critical thinking, creativity, initiative, problem solving, risk assessment, decision taking and constructive management of feelings).