The workshop held in Istanbul in May 2025 had the aim of creating the necessary concentration and interaction among all partners’ teams, to explore the main current challenges of citizenship education, redefine its scope and components, and, importantly, agree on a set of design principles and collaboration model on which the education and training supply of DECITEL will be based. The First Workshop Report illustrates the main results of the workshop, which constitute the starting point for the entire content-related and methodological development of the Teacher Academy.

The workshop took place over the course of the first two days of a three-day meeting in Istanbul, hosted by Boğazici University. The meeting began with an open discussion, allowing each partner to explain what they think are the most important aspects of the project. Each partner then took the floor to summarise the state of the art of citizenship education in their country, including recent policy changes and reforms, decisional competences, and approaches in each context. From this discussion emerged a common concern for the discontinuity in policies and frequent changes in programmes, especially alternating between cross-curricular approaches and the standalone teaching of CE: this all creates confusion among school principals, teachers, and learners. Furthermore, partners also highlighted how nationalist trends and nation-centered approaches inhibit a global perspective of citizenship education, an issue that this Teacher Academy aims to address in its work.

The main workshop result: 12 Design Principles for the training supply of DECITEL
After the reporting of all groups, a first list of design principles was drafted and presented for discussion among partners, receiving a substantial consensus and some initial suggestions to modify the order and the wording of the principles. They summarise not only what directly emerged from the different sessions, but also other ideas that were expressed in the national reviews and in the general debate that preceded the workshop. These principles are now the main ground on which the partners are starting the design of the reviewed curricula and new education and training supply that, from 2026, will be concept- and field-validated by the partners in their respective territories, but also, in many cases, at the transnational level. Their number and formulation are still open for improvement, but the Design Principles already summarise the main characterising elements of the Teacher Academy that is currently under development.