The visit by 15 students from the only UWC in Italy, during the ETF’s 30th anniversary events at the end of November, begins with piercing and topical questions: despite their young age, between 17 and 18, the students, accompanied by rector Khalid El-Metaal and coordinator Maria Chiara Billi, already have a clear vision, free of easy illusions. The young people, together with a number of Young European Ambassadors and journalists from national newspapers in the European Neighbourhood countries, were welcomed to Villa Gualino by Hugues Moussy, Jan Peter De Otero and Cristiano Cagnin from the ETF, together with Riel Miller, one of the world’s leading authorities on the theory and practice of future literacy. The aim of the session was to empower young people to really make their voices heard on what education systems could (should?) look like in 25 years time, after a busy morning of engaging with panels of experts and EU representatives.

At the end of the session, we asked the fifteen young people how many of them foresaw a better world in 2050 than the one we have today. It is difficult to make statistics with these numbers, but seven, almost half, replied that they foresaw a better world, and therefore a better education system, in 25 years’ time. The greatest minds of our time are so not only because they failed, but because they were able to overcome their various failures before realising their goals. We are sure that in this room there are already those who will be able to endure the small failures and disappointments, or the great disappointments that will unfortunately always be present in life, and make the education of 2050 the seed for a better world.