GELYDA Update Letter - July/August 2025

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GELYDA Membership Update Letter

 

Dear Members, Colleagues and Friends,

 

We hope this letter finds you well. As the world faces continued challenges, we wanted to take a moment to call out the importance of the work you all do on a daily basis in extended learning and to support the wellbeing and resilience of youth and their families. Since our last membership update GELYDA has been hard at work understanding, supporting, and improving expanded opportunities for learning, development, and thriving in schools and out of school time settings. Below we share our latest news and updates for your review. As always, we greatly appreciate hearing thoughts, feedback, suggestions from the GELYDA community so please feel free to contact us at gelyda.association@outlook.com.

 

Before jumping into updates, those of us based in the United States from GELYDA wanted to take a moment to acknowledge the impact of funding cuts on extended education in our country. Cuts to federally funded education programming (e.g., the Department of Education, National Science Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, etc.) have had a noticeable impact on extended education in the United States. These programs, which include after-school activities, summer learning, and adult education, often rely on government support to operate. With less funding, many programs have had to reduce services, shorten hours, or shut down entirely. This especially affects low-income communities, where families depend on these programs for childcare, academic support, and enrichment opportunities. As a result, students in these areas have had fewer chances to learn and thrive outside regular school hours, which impacts wellbeing and threatens to widen existing educational gaps. We at GELYDA remain dedicated to working with researchers, practitioners and policy makers to bring extended learning and development to the forefront here in the US and, of course to the global community. Here are some examples: 

 

GELYDA’s First In-Person Conference - GELYDA hosted its inaugural in person conference to a global audience of almost 100 attendees in Reykjavik Iceland June 11th to 13th. The event was a great success with engaging workshops and small group sessions, local fieldtrips, captivating keynotes and so much more. GELYDA was honored to host Andreas Schleicher, Director for Education and Skills at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) as one of the keynote speakers with Katrín Jakobsdóttir, Iceland’s former Prime Minister and former Minister of Education, Science, and Culture as chair of the session. Please read more about reflections on the conference in our June and July blogs. 

 

Announcing GELYDA’s 2026 In Person Conference - Following the success of Iceland, the GELYDA team is keeping the energy and momentum of the convening and jumping right back in with both feet to start planning the follow-up conference for Summer 2026. The Steering Committee was happy to announce during the GELYDA Business Meeting in Iceland that the next Association conference will be in Seoul, South Korea. The conference will be co-hosted by one of GELYDA’s co-founders, Sang Hoon Bae, and his team at Sungkyunkwan University. More information on dates and conference details will be shared shortly. Please consider joining us next summer in South Korea. 

 

Launch of Extensions Magazine - GELYDA’s new biannual magazine Extensions was successfully launched in May. The magazine is an international digest dedicated to delving into the realm of extracurricular activities, afterschool programs and extended education. It aims to be a resource for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers who are passionate about extending the experiences, development and learning of children and adolescents. The first issue was focused on workforce in extended education. If you have not already enjoyed Volume 1 please use the link above to access the full magazine. We would love to collect feedback on the layout, content, etc. from the field as we plan for the next issue, due in November 2025. Feel free to reach out to us at gelyda.association@outlook.com.

 

International Journal of Extended Education: The International Journal for Research on Extended Education (IJREE) is co-sponsored by the GELYDA Association and cordially invites submissions on extended education from scholars around the world. IJREE is unique in that it covers international studies in the growing field of extended education. To learn more about the journal and the current issue, Quality in Extended Education (Volume 12), please visit https://budrich-journals.de/index.php/IJREE.  

 

GELYDA’s Fall Webinar: Keeping the momentum of our successful and well attended last webinar in May Extended Learning Through STEM Education, by GELYDA Advisory Board members, the Association is in the process of planning a next webinar for Fall 2025. Relevant and timely themes are currently being reviewed to determine what would be most beneficial to the extended education field as an area of focus. Please be on the lookout for more information to come.   

 

Warm regards,

 

Gil G. Noam, GELYDA Chair

 

and members of the  Steering Committee of GELYDA

 

Sang Hoon Bae, Professor at the Department of Education and Provost in the Sungkyunkwan University

 

Dale Blyth, Professor Emeritus and former Howland Endowed Chair in Youth Development Leadership

 

Kylie Brannelly, Chief Executive Officer of the Queensland Children’s Activities Network (QCAN) and Chairperson of the National Outside School Hours Services Alliance (NOSHSA)

 

Marlene Gras, Founder and Director of TierraED, Mexico City

 

Fuyuko Kanefuji, Professor at the Department of Human Sciences and Director of the Institute of Living Sciences, Bunkyo University

 

Linda Khanyi, Manager and Content Advisor at the Parliament of South Africa (National Council of Provinces)

 

Kolbrún Þorbjörg Pálsdóttir, Dean of the School of Education at the University of Iceland, Reykjavik

 

Ludwig Stecher, Professor at the University of Giessen