TEPEE (Towards a European Portfolio for Environmental Education) is a Socrates Comenius 3 Network set up to pool in the expertise of European school teachers, teacher educators, research centres, universities, NGOs and local authorities. It aims to develop a mechanism that will enable educators to evaluate and certify environmental education competencies.

Banking on the diverse experiences throughout the European territory, the project team is expected to identify and define a scale of abilities and competencies in environmental education and propose appropriate methods and instruments to develop a system of accreditation based on formative evaluation. The partners in this three-year project are Italy (co-ordinator), Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Portugal, Romania and Sweden.

Malta hosted the network's first transnational meeting at the Galaxy Hotel, Sliema between June 25 and 28. The event marked the completion of the project's data collection and interpretation phase. Dr Paul Pace (Faculty of Education), the local TEPEE Network partner and convenor of the event, said the core of the meeting was a Comenius 1 contact seminar aimed at facilitating the development of new Comenius environmental education projects, thus strengthening and extending the network's size.

With an attendance of 60 delegates from the project partner countries and Turkey, the seminar proved to be a unique opportunity for schools to find partners for the development of environmental education projects. Seven new Comenius 1 projects have been identified and will be submitted for approval by the European Commission next year.

Mr Bertrand Delpeuch, Head of School Education Unit in the DG Education and Culture of the European Commission also attended the event. This event was jointly organised with Annhelica Scerri, Comenius co-ordinator at the Socrates Committee - EUPU, University of Malta.