The award ceremony for the Podcast contest organised under the joint European Union and Council of Europe “Pilot project on digital citizenship education in Türkiye”, in co-operation with the Ministry of National Education,  was held on 28 May in Ankara.

The ceremony gathered ten winning students and their teachers from four pilot provinces, Mardin, Kars, Çanakkale and Aydın, as well as participants from the Ministry of National Education and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

In his opening remarks, Sedat Abdulhakimoğullari, Head of Department for Research and Development and Projects, General Directorate of Basic Education, stated that he was happy to have met with students from different regions of Anatolia on the occasion of the contest. He emphasised the importance of children being able to make their voices heard in the digital world by thanking to the children, teachers and parents who contributed to this contest organised in the seven pilot provinces of the project.

Claus Neukirch, Director of Programme Co-ordination of the Council of Europe, emphasised the objectives and ongoing activities of the “Pilot project on digital citizenship education in Türkiye”, which aims to ensure the active participation of young individuals in democratic life by acquiring competencies of digital citizenship. He also underlined the new education strategy of the Council of Europe (2024-30) and congratulated all students who participated in the podcast contest.

The Podcast contest was particularly important to ensure child participation and to provide space and enabling environment for children to raise their voices by being active stakeholders of the project.  Eighteen applications were received from project pilot schools, prepared by students aged between 10-14. 

The awarded podcasts are presenting discussions and stories on various domains of the digital citizenship education such as being online, ethics and empathy, health and wellbeing and consumer awareness. The winner podcasts will be made available on several platforms including the project web-page in the  following weeks.

Following the presentation of the awarded podcasts, the winners received their symbolic awards and continued their programmes with a half-day city tour in Ankara, with visits to Anıtkabir, Digital Zoo and the old Parliament buildings.  

The event was organised during the week of celebration of the 75^th anniversary of the Council of Europe and the 20^th anniversary of the Council of Europe Programme Office in Ankara.

The “Pilot project on digital citizenship education in Türkiye” is a part of the joint European Union and the Council of Europe joint programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye”.