Senior officials from Bosnia and Herzegovina met with CoE and EU officials and experts in Strasbourg to develop concrete plans for improving quality education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. They had the opportunity to discuss how to promote multi-ethnic societies through education with Dunja Mijatović, the Council of Europe Human Rights Commissioner, Snežana Samardžić-Marković, Director General of Democracy and Matjaž Gruden, Director of Democratic Participation.

The Human Rights Commissioner underlined that young people in BiH want to learn together and that an inclusive and multi-ethnic education system is essential to ensure that this happens.

The expert meeting is part of a process to identify concrete steps to improve the quality of education by ensuring inclusive and non-discriminatory measures are in place. Recommendations were developed based on substantive research on the existing legislation, support to different profile schools and focus group interviews carried out this past year. The officials developed concrete steps– for schools, between schools or teachers or, eventually, at the political level – to improve the quality of education. These recommendations and a roadmap will be shared at a roundtable to be held in Sarajevo on 24 April.

This activity is part of the project “Quality Education in Multi-Ethnic Societies" within the joint EU/CoE Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey.