The Council of Europe Project “Education for democracy in the Republic of Moldova (Phase II)" is implemented within the Council of Europe Action Plans for the Republic of Moldova 2021-2024 and 2025-2028. The Swiss Confederation is one of the donor countries to the Action Plans and the key donor in the field of education for democracy.

The Project is carried out in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova and in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the United Nations Population Fund in the Republic of Moldova and the Zurich University of Teacher Education within the programme "Moldova: Promoting Active Civic Involvement" for the years 2023-2026.

The Project promotes the Council of Europe approach to citizenship education: a holistic view on knowledge, skills, values and attitudes, a focus on democratic school development and an integration of young people’s civic experiences in the wider community.

Funding: The total budget of the Project amounts to EUR 1,100,000;

Duration of the project: The Project is implemented over a period of 2023-2026, starting in January 2023.

What is the goal and objective of the project?

The Project supports the on-going reform process lead by the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova, and helps:

• further support the integration of Council of Europe’s flagship Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture in the primary and secondary cycles, including the upper secondary technical education and vocational education and training (VET).
• further strengthen national teacher education capacities and the professional competences of teachers.
• support the implementation in schools of the methodology on the democratic school governance.

The objectives of the Project are:

• National policy and methodological frameworks to prepare young people for democratic citizenship and support their participation in decision-making processes at the local and national levels are further strengthened.
• Professionals and institutions in the education sector prepare young people for life in democratic societies and support the participation of young people in public life.
• Girls and boys practice competences for democratic culture and actively participate in decision-making processes in formal and non-formal settings.

The Project's expected results are:

• The national policy framework for developing competences for democratic culture through formal education is further aligned to Council of Europe standards.
• Teachers strengthen their professional capacities to apply new methodology and approaches in teaching competences for democratic culture in a supportive institutional environment.
• An increased number of boys and girls have access to various tools / platforms / opportunities in formal and non-formal settings to develop and practice competences for democratic culture, to participate in decision-making processes and in community development initiatives.

Who benefits from the project?

Teachers: key target group; they are crucial in developing the competences for democratic culture in school children. The Project will support a broader integration of competences for democratic culture in school curricula and strengthened capacity of educators and schools to develop these competences throughout the pre-university education cycle. This should take into account the structural problems affecting the teacher profession – shortage of teachers, high teacher turnover, age of teachers, low salaries.

Schoolchildren: key beneficiaries; the political instability and polarization that have characterised the Moldovan political life in the past decades have been key discouraging factors for youth engagement. At the same time, the lack of a culture of democratic participation is another determining factor, as is the large amount of disinformation and fake news circulating in online media especially during election campaigns. Youth need the knowledge, competences, motivation and opportunities to engage with public and political life and make their voices heard.

How does the action work?

The role of formal education in developing a culture of democratic participation has gained greater prominence in the Republic of Moldova in the past years. In 2018, the Ministry of Education and Research of the Republic of Moldova developed a re-conceptualised curriculum for the civic education subject, “Education for Society”, for grades V to XII.

The new curriculum is largely based on the Council of Europe standards – the Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) and the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for a Democratic Culture (RFCDC) and was developed with Council of Europe expert support.

To support this ambitious reform of the formal civic education, in 2019-2022 the Council of Europe implemented the Project “Education for Democracy in the Republic of Moldova”, Phase I in close partnership with the ministry.

Phase II of the Project support the integration of the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC) transversally into other subjects (curricular areas) at secondary education level.

What do we expect to achieve?

Legal and Policy Framework: a policy framework and implementation guidelines regarding the civic education subject and the democratic governance of schools are developed in line with CoE’s Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education (EDC/HRE) principles and the CoE’s Reference Framework of Competences for a Democratic Culture (CDC Framework). The Project will provide support to the Ministry in several policy areas to further ensure a coherent and consistent approach to competence-based civic education throughout the pre-university education: primary education, VET, and transversal integration in secondary education.

Training and capacity building: The Education for Democracy Project (Phase I) helped to develop national teacher training capacities on the new subject and has supported civic education teachers in this initial stage of curriculum implementation. Teachers have received a lot of training, but they are still in the phase of familiarization. In the 2nd phase, the Project will support deepening of their competences through training on specific subjects and training for new teachers. The Project will develop and deliver training on teaching the competences for democratic culture for teachers of all subjects and primary level teachers. The Council of Europe will strive to ensure a follow up to the training activities delivered, to consolidate the new skills and competences of teachers following a period of application in practice.

Decision-making processes: Children and adolescents have developed the skills and acquired the knowledge to be able to participate in their schools’ and communities’ decision-making processes and they are offered opportunities to engage in community development activities in cooperation with the local public authorities and civil society organisations.