The Advisory Board of the Horizontal Facility Action “Quality Education for All” held its third meeting online on 22 October 2020.
The meeting focused on activities implemented in the past 6 months during a period marked by the COVID-19 pandemic. In their opening remarks Adnan Husić, Assistant Minister from the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH and Bojana Urumova, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Sarajevo reflected on the recent adoption of the Policy Recommendations and Roadmap on Quality Education in Multi-Ethnic Societies by the Council of Ministers of BiH and called for further steps to be taken towards its implementation. Krassimir Nikolov, Head of Section for European Integration, Political, Press and Information of the Delegation of the European Union to BiH noted that education remains a priority sector under the joint EU/CoE programme in its efforts to contribute to the reform of BiH society towards a more stable and prosperous future. Sarah Keating, Head of the Division for Co-operation and Capacity Building from the Council of Europe’s Education Department touched on the concrete results of the project in view of the COVID-19 pandemic and informed about the recent CoE developments in the sector of education.
Since the last Advisory Board meeting in March 2020, several activities were undertaken in order to promote a democratic school approach for quality education, including the development of the manual on teaching Competences for Democratic Culture online as well as webinars and video materials for teachers and school management. A report on mapping and recommendations for Geography curricula has been prepared and will be aligned with the Policy Recommendations and Roadmap on Quality Education and the Council of Europe’s Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture. Members of the Advisory Board were also informed on the ongoing procedure for selection of grants awarded to NGOs for the promotion of a democratic school culture.
The Advisory Board members agreed on future steps and activities for the coming period. They also noted the difficulties faced by the education sector in these unprecedented times which greatly emphasize the need to follow the principles of inclusion and non-discrimination.
Representatives of institutions included the Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH, ministries responsible for education on entity and cantonal levels and the Department for Education of the Government of Brčko District as well as representatives of the Agency for Pre-primary, Primary and Secondary Education, the Directorate for European Integration and the Institution of Human Rights Ombudsman of BiH.
The Action “Quality Education for All” is co-funded by the European Union and the Council of Europe within the second phase of the Horizontal Facility for Western Balkans and Turkey and implemented by the Council of Europe.
