Author: Diarmuid
Firstly, a happy summer (if you can call it that with all the rain – not enjoying my second Scottish summer weather wise!) to everyone. Traditionally it is a quiet time for us here at CETS as most of our work involves teachers and students who enjoy the fruits of a number of weeks off around this time. We do like to keep busy however, so I will provide a quick update regarding the status of one of our projects.
Democratic Enterprise
Thanks to support from Co-operative Development Scotland and the Scottish Government, CETS has been working in collaboration with the University of Aberdeen on an exciting project developing educational resources for higher education. Democratic Enterprise will be released in late September and will cover co-operative and employee-ownership topics in-depth, including Ownership, Governance, Participation, as well as historical and legal perspectives. The textbook will be accompanied by an online learning environment, containing additional case studies and resources, as well as advice for academics on how to incorporate the material into a course. Further details on the resource and the project as a whole can be found at http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cets.
Despite the majority of our work being aimed at school level, we feel that this resource will be an important component in the education of our young people. It may be a dream but we hope that someday a child will learn about co-operatives and other forms of democratic enterprises from the moment they enter Scottish education to the day they leave. Hopefully Co-operatives Fortnight and the 2012 International Year of Co-operatives will go some way to realising this aim. In the meantime we’ll keep ploughing on and banging at the door so to speak.
By the way, we are beginning work on a new school level resource. Early stages at the moment but it will explore some aspects of the food cycle. More news to follow!
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