Lifelong learning has become an indispensable precondition for participating in the different sectors of today's society, since people need to reorient themselves and to acquire new skills with increasing successon. Therefor different learning places with comprehensive educational offers are required. These offers can be systematically improved by cooperation ranging from sharing resources and exchanging experiences up to developing a shared understanding of education. Such an understanding considers the interests and needs of the people living in a local area and translates them into an adequate framework of complementary learning.
We focus on institutions dealing with children and youths because the basis of successful education is laid during childhood and adolescence. Taking a cross-institutional perspective, we are especially concerned about how schools and institutions from nonschool learning contexts can improve cooperation that leads to a sustainable education model for the region. In this context we put special emphasis on media education and tasks of organizational development under special consideration of their support through ICT.