Among the participants of the discussion were Maria Kiseleva, Head of the Regional Cooperation Department of ANO Moscow Project Office for Tourism and Hospitality Development, Aleksey Obukhov, Leading Expert of the HSE Centre for Contemporary Childhood Research and methodologists of “City of Discoveries”, Aram Pakhchanian, Director of Ayb School and Vice President of ABBYY Company Group, Kirill Medvedev, Director of the “New School”, and other representatives of the expert community. The discussion was moderated by Mikhail Mokrinsky, Headmaster of Letovo School. The experts discussed ways of turning the city into a single educational space and distributing roles between the parties involved.

Moscow already possess a diverse environment for developing as a single educational space. That is why the Moscow City Tourism Committee promotes “City of Discoveries”, the project in the field of educational tourism.

“Today our capital has a network of cultural, business, and educational institutions, which work with children and students in various formats. To make this work more consistent and far-reaching by developing this partnership network and operational processes and to modernize the existing tourist infrastructure to be able to welcome schoolchildren from regions – that’s the aim of the Moscow City Tourism Committee”, says Maria Kiseleva.

“To go beyond the school limits: to walk about, to search, to explore. These are the aims of ‘City of discoveries’. We create navigation models in order to explore the city as a system. Going beyond the school limits is the key point for transformation of education. An active approach as the basis for ‘City of discoveries’ helps us to get closer to the ideal result”, notes Aleksey Obukhov.

The panel also became a platform for discussion of the opportunities for education development. Lifetime learning and experiential learning were distinguished among the modern trends. The participants agreed that education should be efficient and helpful for harmonic development of children and their personal fulfilment. In this respect, education process shall reach far beyond the schoolyard.

“Today, nobody doubts school’s usefulness. It has its own value. It shall be a place, where children attended by adults could experiment, make mistakes, and gain their own experience”, notes Aram Pakhchanian.

“Today, the school is actively transforming and gaining new functions. It becomes a sociocultural educational platform open for children, adults, and the expert community. It is important to understand that the school cannot be a closed space, it forms communities around itself. On the other hand, it is also important that schoolchildren could leave the boundaries of the school and interact with the city environment”, shared Kirill Medvedev.