Purpose

Access to education and success at school depend heavily on language competences. The "Platform of resources and references for plurilingual and intercultural education" is designed to help member states to develop their curricula in ways that take account of all the languages present in the school in their relation to the individual learner: language(s) of schooling (language as a subject and language(s) in other subjects); regional, minority and migrant languages; foreign languages.

The Platform is an open and dynamic resource that provides definitions, points of reference, descriptions and descriptors, studies and examples of good practice. Member states are invited to use the Platform according to their needs, resources and educational culture to support the development of policies that promote equal access to quality education.

Three major guides

The Language Policy Programme has published three guides to support (i) the development of language education policies, (ii) the development and implementation of curricula for plurilingual and intercultural education, and (iii) the development of strategies for teaching and teacher training that focus on the language dimension in all subjects.

Plurilingual and intercultural education

A major challenge for education systems is to develop learners' linguistic and intercultural competences so that they can operate effectively as citizens, acquire knowledge and develop open attitudes to otherness. This vision of the teaching of languages and cultures is referred to as plurilingual and intercultural education.

For more information and resources about the Platform of resources and references for plurilingual and intercultural education visit the dedicated website: www.coe.int/lang-platform