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PASCH stands for Schools: Partners for the Future. Five years after the founding of the initiative, a workshop in Berlin shows how the German language links pupils from around the world as well as the visions the young people have for learning and living in the future.



All is quiet. Santiago from Mexico enters the stage. Minutes pass. The audience gets uneasy. The 18-year-old begins to speak – in German. His voice is steady, his gestures are sweeping. “Do you know what the future holds? Do you know? No, none of us know. But, we know one thing: The future begins right now!”

Santiago, born in the Mexican city of Guadalajara, is one of 20 young people who travelled to Berlin in late October for a Future Workshop as part of the initiative Schools: Partners for the Future (PASCH). The participants in the workshop came from Russia, Turkey, Morocco, Chile, the United States, Poland, Argentina, Mexico, Uzbekistan, India, Ireland, Romania, Spain, Cameroon and Germany. For four days at the Berlin Akademie der Künste they discussed the visions they developed together for learning in the future. The foundation for this was a mutual language – the young people learned German at the schools in their homelands.

“Enthusiasm for modern Germany”

“Since February 2008, the PASCH initiative has been reinforcing and linking a worldwide network of about 1,500 partner schools with special ties to Germany,” says Ina Hoischen, who also travelled here for the Future Workshop. The PASCH consultant works in the Munich head office of the Goethe-Institut. What do ties to Germany mean? This is exactly what the days of the workshop in Berlin have illustrated, Hoischen is delighted to say. “Here, we can impressively experience that the initiative has awakened enthusiasm for the German language in young people.”

Four partners collaborate in the PASCH project: the Zentralstelle für das Auslandsschulewesen (Coordinating Office for the Overseas School System), the Goethe-Institut, the Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (German Academic Exchange Service) and the Pädagogische Austauschdienst der Kultusministerkonferenz (Educational Exchange Service of the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs of the Länder in the Federal Republic of Germany). The Internet platform PASCH-net is the central communication and learning platform of the PASCH network. “All of those involved have contributed their skills to the success of PASCH,” explains Hoischen. In over 110 countries, the Goethe-Institut presently oversees 520 schools that have particular interest in promoting German lessons and a partnership with Germany.

In addition to supporting the PASCH schools with multimedia teaching, learning and geography materials as well as advanced training for teachers, the Goethe-Institut also offers visitor tours, school principal conferences, youth courses in Germany and regional language camps. “It is also always a special concern for us to create a targeted space for encounters,” says Hoischen, “as here in Berlin.”

Before his appearance, Santiago was not particularly nervous. His prior PASCH projects taught him to speak before an audience. In Berlin, he now met PASCH pupils from other countries, like 17-year-old Navruza from Uzbekistan for example, who has been learning German for nine years. She would like to one day become a politician. “Foreign languages are bridges between countries,” explains Navruza. “If I didn’t speak German, I wouldn’t be here. We need foreign languages so that we can work together.”

This is the second visit by Amina from Morocco to Berlin and she feels like she’s in a different world in Germany. “The people here have more freedoms and can do what they want. But, the new generation in Morocco also has new ideas for the future. They want to change the country, like I do. PASCH and the German language help me.” To see the world – with the help of the German language – that is the dream of Dhruv from New Delhi, who chose to take German as a foreign language in the fifth grade. “In Delhi there are many people from different states,” he relates. “In Berlin there are many people from different countries.” After finishing school, Dhruv wants to come to Germany to study.

Yet regardless of whether Santiago, Navruza, Amina or Dhruv continue to learn German or their enthusiasm for other languages someday grows, the PASCH pupils agree on one thing: The days they spent at the Future Workshop in Berlin were an exciting exchange across national borders. The fact that these discussions went far beyond the future of learning languages also surprised Ina Hoischen from the Goethe-Institut. The pupils have many dreams. “But most of all they want to make their own contributions to making the world a better place,” says Hoischen, “whether as politicians, journalists or environmentalists.” Santiago’s statement echoes: The future begins now.

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