UWC Regional Committees meet in Madrid
UWC Regional Committees meet in Madrid
The United World Colleges represent an extraordinary educational model, and perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this remarkable movement is the National Committee structure.
There are currently 124 voluntary National Committees which perform the important role of selecting students and awarding scholarships to young men and women from countries in all parts of the world to attend one of the 12 Colleges. Of the 124 National Committees, 43 are in Europe, and these European committees are currently meeting in Madrid with representatives of most of the Colleges, including me on behalf of Li Po Chun UWC in Hong Kong.
This is the second regional meeting I have attended, the previous one being a gathering of Asia-Pacific National Committees which I hosted at my own College in June. It has been interesting to note the differences between National Committee membership in Europe and in the Asia-Pacific. In Europe, most members are young graduates of UWCs, whereas in Asia there is greater emphasis on experienced and distinguished educationalists and officials. It is interesting to speculate whether the types of students selected in the different regions reflect this difference to any extent. In any case, the enthusiasm and idealism of the members of the European National Committees was certainly impressive, and indeed, infectious!
Although my own College is situated in Asia, our intake of European students is quite considerable, this year numbering 26 in 1st Year plus 27 in 2nd Year, or over 20% of our total numbers. Moreover, the European students tend to be highly visible, articulate and influential. In that context, it has been extremely useful to share with European National Committee members our Asian perspective on the students they select. We enjoyed a particularly helpful and enjoyable round table discussion yesterday afternoon on the cultural diversity among the United World Colleges in various parts of the world.
Other useful sessions included discussions on the new Colleges in Costa Rica and Bosnia-Herzegovina, statistics on National Committees and selection of students, the Dutch online selection process, UWC strategic planning to 2012, partnerships between National Committees, the Hungarian experience of restructuring the selection process, the German experience of fundraising, developing the concept of short courses and the proposed UWC in Maastricht, Netherlands. The conference closed with an excellent question and answer session between National Committees and the College representatives.
One of the interesting, and perhaps unexpected, points to emerge from the discussions was the point that all the UWCs are now finding a significant upsurge in religious faith among their students. Some may argue that this is to be expected among young people who have been selected for their idealism and passion to create a better world, but as one of my fellow Heads commented, it is in stark generational contrast to the absence of faith positions of many of the staff in UWCs. There is a significant challenge in this observation that raises some big questions of how students who wish to express their religious viewpoints in a multi-cultural environment can be supported most effectively.
Update to my blog from 2 weeks ago: the South China Morning Post has uploaded a great 12 minute presentation on our students’ service project in Ma Chan lepers’ village. It can be viewed at http://homepage.mac.com/steve.cray/yunnan320.mov
Sunday, 26 November 2006