Gelsenkirchen

Education is the key! We in Gelsenkirchen are only too aware of that. We are therefore always determined to provide the best possible, earliest education for all. We are pioneers and a model authority in the regional ‘leave no child behind' project and we have developed a whole series of support services across educational life, both for the very young and the more mature. And it delights me to see how much this subject also moves Gelsenkirchen society – such as in respect of education for sustainable development.

Frank Baranowski, Mayor of the City of Gelsenkirchen

Building a learning city

A city with a population of more than 260,000, Gelsenkirchen is situated on the Rhine-Herne Canal. It once had a flourishing economy centred on coal mining. However, the city is now one of the most deprived areas in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. It has a high unemployment rate (14.9 per cent) with 40 per cent of children under the age of 3 years growing up in families dependent on social welfare.

As part of its efforts to build a learning city, Gelsenkirchen has sought to revive its city centre and surroundings. It combines lifelong learning measures with a dynamic sustainable development strategy. Since 2008, the city’s initiatives have been based on the concept of education for sustainable development (ESD). These two goals – lifelong learning and sustainable development – have been supported by the implementation of innovative and efficient measures tackling multiple issues. Gelsenkirchen’s efforts have already significantly benefited its inhabitants and boosted the city’s image. Its commitment to providing learning activities inclusive of everyone, from early childhood to the third age, has enabled Gelsenkirchen to become Germany’s first learning city.

With its continuous efforts to include citizens in the decision-making process, Gelsenkirchen has achieved a high rate of civic participation and a strong commitment to the development of a learning city, laying fertile ground for future projects. The learning city roadmap, adopted in 2016, was the product of a participatory process while the 2016 Joint Declaration on Learning was signed by more than 120 institutions, local businesses and organizations, confirming the commitment of all actors involved to the development of a vibrant, sustainable learning community.

1.            Introduction

Since 1998, when the city launched its local Agenda 21 initiative (known as aGEnda 21) – a non-binding plan for the attainment of the sustainable development goals – Gelsenkirchen has been initiating educational projects in line with the three pillars of sustainable development: economic development, social development and environmental protection.

The municipality has used aGEnda 21 as a means of involving public and private actors in its overall learning strategy. Projects have been created to improve individuals’ opportunities, with a particular focus on children, young people and informal out-of-school learning activities. Examples of initiatives include KreativWerkstatt (Creative Workshop) and Kolleg21. KreativWerkstatt aims to encourage young people to think creatively and increase their awareness of environmental issues. Kolleg21 offers young people specific training on urban issues and sustainable development throughout their education. This helps new generations gain additional skills, and increases their employability in the context of a more sustainable economy. The progress made through aGEnda 21 has also enabled the municipality to build civic participation and include its citizens in decision-making processes, thereby ensuring they feel more connected to their city.

In 2015, the municipality took the opportunity to step up its learning city strategy by entering the Zukunftsstadt 2030+ (Future City) competition held by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Gelsenkirchen’s participation enabled the city to test further learning activities and launch several pilot projects. It also reinforced civic participation in the learning city process through a Learning City Vision drafted in collaboration with local residents and issued in 2016. That same year, it brought together inhabitants, associations, private sector representatives – members from 120 organizations overall – to sign a joint declaration on building a learning city.

2.            Developing a plan

The development of Gelsenkirchen as a learning city is intrinsically linked both to its industrial legacy and to its current economic and social problems. A high unemployment rate is one of the main issues facing the city. In August 2016, it stood at 14.9 per cent, far higher than the national average of 6.1 per cent. The city’s current challenges and industrial past are reflected in the city’s objectives: to utilize learning as a way of reconnecting citizens with their living environment; and to revive the economy and create employment opportunities.

The first step the city took was to increase stakeholders’ involvement to ensure that solutions were developed that matched citizens’ needs and encouraged them to participate in public life. Once this had been achieved, a number of medium-term goals were established, all of which were closely linked to the city’s Zukunftsbildung (Education for the Future) project. This project aims to equip individuals with the full range of skills and competencies that an information and knowledge society requires. The project also aims to ensure that inhabitants have a more positive image of their city. Gelsenkirchen’s participation in the Zukunftsstadt 2030+ (Future City) competition cemented its efforts to build a learning city, leading to projects linking learning and sustainability, with medium-term goals built on flexible coordination structures and networks.

In the long term, the city’s objective is to institutionalize these structures fully in alignment with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, thereby transforming Gelsenkirchen into a learning organism and establishing sustainable urban development. This notion of a learning organism reflects another of the city’s long-term ambitions: to become an attractive, economically dynamic and liveable city, respectful of its natural environment.

3.            Creating a coordinated structure involving all stakeholders

The aGEnda 21 Office serves as the key coordination structure for Gelsenkirchen’s learning city project. It is a joint collaboration between the municipality and the Protestant church in the district of Gelsenkirchen/Wattenscheid. It was founded in 1998, following the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, to tackle environmental, economic and social challenges at the local level. Gelsenkirchen’s aGEnda 21 Office initiates, encourages and organizes a wide range of projects focusing on topics such as Children/Youth, Consumption/Lifestyle and Nature/Ecology. The Office’s remit is thus to coordinate the development of a learning city. It takes a bottom-up approach centred on various working groups and workshops.

Gelsenkirchen’s participation in the Federal Government’s Zukunftsstadt 2030+ competition stepped up its practice of integrating citizens, local businesses and associations into the learning city project. Since 2013, a participatory process has led to the development of a common vision and a joint declaration, signed by 120 key actors in 2016. The city has also created a Zukunftsstadt-Büro (Future City Office) to coordinate learning city activities related to the Future City contest.

At the regional level, the municipality has been cooperating on a number of projects with the cities of Essen and Bottrop. This exchange of knowledge and competencies is essential to all three cities, which are pursuing different but complementary goals: Bottrop is the ‘Innovation City’ and Essen, the ‘European Green Capital’.

4.            Mobilizing and utilizing resources

Gelsenkirchen is mobilizing resources creatively to finance its development into a ‘learning organism’. From the outset, the city has used its projects to build a network of stakeholders, all of whom are fully committed to achieving this goal. Learning activities are jointly financed by the city and the Protestant church in Gelsenkirchen/Wattenscheid. A dedicated group of experienced volunteers from aGEnda 21-Förderverein – an association that supports the initiative – is working with the city to mobilize funding. Several grants have been acquired through the Zukunftsstadt 2030+ competition and academic support for the Future City initiative is provided by the Free University of Berlin’s Institut Futur.

In 2016, local businesses signed a joint declaration with the municipality, confirming their commitment to the development of learning measures and their willingness to help fund such measures. Local businesses have subsidized learning activities in Gelsenkirchen in the past, including the KreativWerkstatt (Creative Workshop) project, which benefited young people from all backgrounds and was subsidized by a local bank, Volksbank Ruhr-Mitte.

In addition, all of the city’s public facilities can be used as learning places. For example, Biomassenpark Hugo (biomass park), a former coal mine that has been converted into a sustainable park, serves a double function. It is both a green public space and an educational space equipped with a number of interactive features, such as the ESD Learning Trail, which was built to promote inhabitants’ awareness of environmental issues and sustainable development.

5.            Making learning accessible to all

Gelsenkirchen’s projects comprise various fields of action to address the objectives laid down in the city’s joint vision. These projects range from out-of-school learning facilities to participatory learning activities. Many of them, including the Biomassenpark Hugo project, focus on young people and children. Others, such as Kolleg21, teach teenagers and young adults practical skills related to sustainable urban planning.

Formal education institutions often overlook the importance of developing individual creativity. Gelsenkirchen has implemented the KreativWerkstatt to provide children and young people with a more balanced education. Since it was launched in 2007, around 4,500 young people across the city have participated in the project, engaging in a variety of activities that stimulate their imagination and foster creative thinking.

The KreativWerkstatt project offers children and young people the opportunity to take part in a wide range of activities free of charge. Informal learning activities take the form of long-term courses or one-off workshops. They cover a broad assortment of topics designed to challenge all aspects of a child’s imagination. Some examples of activities proposed to date are: experiencing nature up close; creating art from new materials; and experimenting with modern technologies. To ensure that activities are available to as broad a public as possible, they are held in youth centres across the city.

Since 2010, the project has been awarded three times as an official project of UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development from the German Commission for UNESCO.

6.            Organizing celebratory events

Gelsenkirchen organizes a number of events that either promote the joys of learning; invite citizens and stakeholders to participate in the process of building a learning city; or highlight progress achieved to date.

Non-formal activities promoting learning are organized in order to satisfy current learners’ desire for knowledge and to attract potential learners. To fit with the city’s strategy of linking learning and sustainable development, activities have focused on environmental issues. These include open-air breakfasts, youth forest conferences and night biking events.

Inhabitants and members of local businesses and organizations have been invited to work with local government to define the concept of a learning city. Since 2013, the city has scheduled a number of events, workshops and conferences in order to promote dialogue with its citizens and thereby fully understand the needs and wishes of all concerned. This comprehensive set of strategies, designed to encourage discussions centring on Gelsenkirchen’s vision for a learning city, ensures strong stakeholder engagement.

The city has organized events at crucial stages of the learning city project. Local and regional guests were invited to attend the opening of a Learning Trail in Gelsenkirchen’s Biomassenpark Hugo. Representatives from the Regional Ministry for Schools and Further Education, and the Regional Ministry for Economic Affairs, Energy, Industry, Small and Medium-Sized Businesses and Trade were present, highlighting the project’s pioneering approach to interlinking environmental, economic and educational issues. The city plans to host a number of events in 2017, as well as workshops to develop further planning and implementation concepts for building a learning city. In 2018, a final conference will be held, culminating in a ceremony in which the outcomes are formally adopted and signed by the organizations involved.

7.            Monitoring and evaluation

In Gelsenkirchen, established mechanisms such as education monitoring and parent surveys are used to improve activities in the field of education.

The Institut Futur (Free University of Berlin) has provided academic support to help Gelsenkirchen develop its ideas on learning and enter the Zukunftsstadt 2030+ competition. Initial results from the academic reflection of the process indicate that the city’s objectives have been achieved. Citizens’ participation in developing a vision for the city and identifying fields of action has proved successful. The success of the communication process is reflected in the desire, expressed by administrators and citizens alike, to enshrine this vision in a mission statement. Steps will also be taken to monitor the educational and administrative impact of related activities.

So far, monitoring measures relate mainly to the ‘fundamental conditions for building a learning city’, as defined in the Key Features of Learning Cities. In the course of continuing cooperation with the Institut Futur, research results will be used to develop more effective solutions that will inform the construction of a learning city. Other Key Features – namely the ‘major building blocks of a learning city’ and the ‘wider benefits of building a learning city’ – will be addressed within the ongoing process of becoming a learning city and through collaborations with further academic partners.

Additionally, a number of specific ESD-related projects have been assessed both internally and externally. Gelsenkirchen is part of the ‘QuaSi BNE’ initiative, a research project focusing on quality assurance in ESD, which is strongly supported by universities working together with communes. As such, Gelsenkirchen’s Waldwärts project, an environmental education initiative focusing on forests, receives academic support from the University of Bielefeld, whose adult education centre conducts interviews for the purpose of quality assurance. Also, one year after the launch of the local Kolleg21 project, its participants worked with social scientists to evaluate the project’s progress thus far.

8.            Achievements and the way forward

A variety of learning projects and measures has enabled Gelsenkirchen to reach major milestones as part of its vision of becoming a learning organism.

The high rate of civic participation in the decision-making process is one of the municipality’s most significant accomplishments. It illustrates both that inhabitants have a keen interest in learning, and that they are strongly committed to the development of their city. Citizens want educational attainment to be independent of (parents’) social background and financial means. The continuous rise in the number of youth and adult learners participating in local programmes testifies to a concomitant increase in citizens’ commitment and development.

The multiple awards that Gelsenkirchen’s learning initiatives have received over the years have also improved Gelsenkirchen’s image in Germany as a whole. Since 2010, the city has received the UN Decade of ESD award for communes four times, in addition to specific projects which have also been awarded. It has won a German Sustainability Award (national prize for ESD), and in 2016, was awarded with the UNESCO Global Action Programme on ESD in Germany. By gaining a reputation as a learning city, Gelsenkirchen increasingly attracts businesses and families to the area.

9.            Contact