I am currently in Montreal in Canada to deliver a presentation on Access and Local Collaborations. The inaugural World Congress brings delegates from around the world to share practice and to disseminate research and initiatives on the issues of access to higher education. The Congress is an intiative of the European Access Network (EAN) and PASCAL is proud to be one of its sponsors.

The conference features a mix of keynotes, plenaries and themed parallel sessions.

There are seven key themes which guide the parallele sessions are

1. Linking Social and Economic Development to Access Strategies in Cities and Regions
2. Students as Agents of Change for Post-Secondary Education
3. Financing Educaitonal Opportunities
4. Working Lives: Issues and Ideas in Adult and Vocational Education
5. Re-thinking Access: De-constructing Traditional Assumptions about Higher Learning Systems and the Implications for Access Policies and Prgrammes
6. Indigenous People and Access to Post-Secondary Education
7. Teaching and Learning for Success and Inclusion

There are also a number of non-thematic open sessions.

Despite the diverse contexts and environments that delegates aqr sutuated, there were a number of commonalities which many of the delgates could recognise and empathise with.

Networking was a key theme and delegates had numreous opportunities over coffee and lunch to network with colleagues and make connections.

http://www.eanworldcongress.org/