[Available in Spanish and French.]
The meeting included two major announcements. The first concerned the EPF leadership with Stephan de Valk (MEVW, Netherlands) confirmed as chair of the EPF for another year and Ilas Köerner-Wellershaus (Verband Bildungsmedien, Germany) confirmed as Vice-Chair, succeeding Brian Gilsenan (CJ Fallon, Ireland). The EPF thanked Brian warmly for his contribution since becoming vice-chair in 2020. The second announcement was the decision to create a dedicated African EPF group to complement other regional groups for Latin America and ASEAN+ following a report from Lawrence Njagi, the Chair of the African Publishers Network.
Discussion during the day covered educational technology perspectives from the UK, the EU and Sweden as well as country reports from Kenya, Rwanda and Tanzania.
Georgi Dimitrov, Head of Unit C4, DG EAC (Education, Youth, Sport and Culture), European Commission joined the meeting remotely to present the work of the Commission within the 2021-27 Digital Education Action Plan and Jannie Jeppesen, CEO of the Swedish EdTEch Industry association presented her experience in Sweden as well as some perspectives at European level from her role as Deputy Chair of the European EdTech Alliance (EEA). The view from the UK came from Lindsay Nadin, a Director at Pearson School Qualifications and Chair of the Educational Publishers’ Council within the Publishers Association (UK) and Louis Coiffait-Gunn, Director for Policy and Public Affairs also at the Publishers Association (UK).
The next Educational Publishers Forum meeting is scheduled for 1-2 June 2023 in Madrid.