PARTICIPATION FORMALITIES

The schools which would like to be part of the UNESCO Associated Schools Network are invited to send the respective request to the Italian National Commission.
The application of association written on letter-head paper of the school and signed by the Headmaster including the planned project has to be sent to:
Commissione Nazionale Italiana per l'UNESCO - Piazza Firenze, 27 - 00186 Roma, until latest the 30th of September.
and to:
Ministry of Public Education, Viale Trastevere, 76/a - 00153 Roma.

OTHER REQUIRED DOCUMENTS
The international ASPnet coordination requires also this document (here available only in French and English) to be attached to the Italian application and signed by the Headmaster. All the applications recieved without the Headmaster's signature will be rejected.

HOW TO PLAN AN UNESCO PROJECT
The students, in cooperation with their teachers can choose for their project one of the subjects proposed by UNESCO:

• World Concerns and the role of the United Nations System;
• Education for Sustainable Development;
• Peace and Human Rights;
• Intercultural Learning;

or they can choose to create a national or an international project.  



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF AN UNESCO PROJECT
The project has to contain all the elements presented in the Circular of the Ministry of Public Education 3561/INT/U04 from the 11th of May 2001.
In particular, the project should:

1. be based on actual problems of world-wide interest;
2. deepen the knowledge of realities outside of Italy in order to widen the horizon of the students and in order to foster a global conception of problems in the context of an international surrounding;
3. be interdisciplinary and take into account the dimension of diversity;
4. foresee the opportunity to work within and with the help of the Network, with other Italian or international schools;
5. result in a high knowledge of other cultures, reflecting positive curiosity and profound respect;
6. aim at the creation of a final product which represent the accomplished work if is possible in a foreign language (for example publications, CD-Rom, etc.)
7. create a wide visibility to the project through the involvement of press, the organization of conferences and the information on the website of each school.

METHODOLOGY
The schools should be conscious of the fact that UNESCO wants the study and the school activities to meet with the strategies that prepare the students to LEARNING TO KNOW, TO DO, TO BE AND TO LIVE TOGETHER. Therefore the consequences of such a goal will also result in changes to the classic role between teacher and students.
In fact, the experts of the Educational Office of UNESCO are convinced that the education of the citizen cannot only depend on schools. Instead, there is the need to find new solutions and alternative systems of approaching didactics. Those should take up the possibilities of cooperation with Universities, UNESCO’s Chairs, local authorities (Town halls, regions, provinces), the media, the family, the private sector, accredited NGOs.
The teacher, therefore, should not only be a transmitter of knowledge, but also have the competence to encourage the students to carry out individual research, to go to libraries, to consult data bases and to develop the capacity to integrate himself adequately into the every-day reality of life.
The student then will by himself turn away from a passive attitude to assume a behaving culturally active and engaged. He will get used to analyze also contradictory points of view and to obtain profound trust in his own abilities. He will learn how to express and to hold up his own ideas, but at the same time to respect the ideas of others. His interest in other cultural regions in this world will grow in a way that will nourish his flexibility when it comes to work but also in his free time, in summary, he will become a true citizen of the world.

DATE OF DELIVERY
All associated schools have to send a detailed description of the project and the work carried out to the Italian National Commission, and in copy to the Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione until the 30th of May, including a translation of the report in French/English/Spanish and the significant and representative part of the final product.

EVALUATION
Work and products of the Associated Schools will be evaluated on the base of the following parameters:

1. the ability of spreading the UNESCO principles;
2. the realization in cooperation with (the territory and local, regional and national authorities - other schools on the national and international level)
3. interdisciplinarity;
4. methodology applied;
5. general competence acquired;
6. communication competence;
7. ways to perceive other cultures.

RULES TO OBSERVE

• The coordination of the ASPnet continue to be developped through the web, for this reason, we’ll apprecite the collaboration of the Headmasters and the project’s Coordinators to check periodically the updated communications sent by the CNI UNESCO.
• Every year, the Schools of the ASPnet have to renew the application of association accompanied by the relative project. If this won’t be possible, for administrative reasons, the school has to communicate the causes and the intention to  partecipate the following year.

In case of non-delivery of the final documentation for two years, the school will be  removed from the national list.

Schools interested in organizing events or publishig informative equipment, and in using the ASPnet logo, have to ask the CNI UNESCO for the permission.