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In order to achieve positive influence towards the
strengthening of the capacities and skills of the educational
cadre in Republic of Macedonia 140 participants from
the secondary and primary schools were part of the
Second international conference on integrated education that
was held in Skopje on the 14 and 15 of December, 2013
under the motto “Integrated education- trend, tendency and necessity”
organized by Nansen dialogue Centre Skopje in partnership
with the Northern Ireland Council for integrated education.
The two day conference for integrated education was
opened with the welcome speech of the Manager for education,
training and development within NDC Skopje Biljana Krsteska- Papic
who introduced the team of experts and lecturers, the
honorable guests from Northern Ireland, Norway and Turkey.
The Executive director of NDC Skopje, Sasho Stojkovski, highlighted the
importance of the conference in terms of sharing the
best international practices in the field of integrated
education as well as towards strengthening the skills
and competences of the educational cadre in the field of integrated education.
Sasho Stojkovski, Executive director of NDC Skopje,
Today, with the second conference on integrated education,
we round up the advanced training cycle of the first generation
of teachers that started the training during August last year.
Dear teachers, I am convinced that the lectures and training
that will be implemented during these two days on behalf
of the international lecturers and trainers in the conference
for integrated education will be of great importance for
your professional development.
Through the topics that will be presented during this second
international conference on integrated education, various
positive examples will be offered, successful practices
in the field of integrated education, new knowledge will be
transferred, and specific skills will be upgraded that are
necessary for qualitative implementation of the integrated educational and upbringing
activities according to the Nansen model for integrated education,
I am also certain that many questions will arise, many dilemmas
as well as new challenges, which all of you, who are
in the role of implementers but also initiators
of the concept and idea for integrated education in the R. of Macedonia,
will motivate, stimulate and encourage you additionally
during the challenging process.
The challenges of integrated education should
not be understood as a difficulty or obstacle, on the contrary,
they are the stairway in the development process of this
educational system.
This process is very complex, sensitive, which begins
with personal transformation, transformation of the schools
and the local surrounding as a precondition for
transformation within the wider society frameworks.
This is a process that has just started and needs to be
supported and motivated. This is a process which involves
many subjects, and your role as teachers and professors
in this long term and multilayered process is that
you are the main moving power and promoters of this idea.
You are the key subject in concurring all the new ides,
future stairways which should be climbed and conquered
by building integrated education as a task and priority goal of
each contemporary educational and upbringing system.
Honored guests, ladies and gentlemen, I hope that this
conference will help us all to achieve a new milestone
in completing this goal.
With a special honor, I announce the opening of the second
international conference on integrated education.
Thank you.
The justification of the existence, the difficult conditions
on which NDC Skopje has begun to work and the deserved
Max van der Stoel prize awarded in the year 2011 is
one additional reason for the continuation of the support
on behalf of Ms. Astrid Thors, the High commissioner
on national minorities within OSCE, support that was
transferred though a video addressing on behalf of Ms. Stephanie Marsal,
Senior adviser of the High commissioner on national minorities.
The honor of opening the conference belonged to prof.
Inge Eidsvag from the Nansen Academy from Lillehammer.
He lectured on the topic “The role of the teachers in the
society and their role in the development of integrated schools”.
The lecture offered a detailed analysis of the important
role of the teachers during the education of the new generations
and their great responsibility for the upbringing
of the children and building a cohesive society.
What we teach and how we teach the children will decide
in what world we will be living- highlighted Eidsvag.
When we mention the recent times and the global changes
the multiethnic and multicultural society has a great
effect on the necessity of better prepared educational cadre.
The professor stated that reforms in the education sector
are necessary because new subjects are needed, new
duration of the compulsory education, adaptation
of the main curriculum according to the individual potentials
of the students.
Inge Eidsvag Nansen Academy, Lillehammer
Besides the guidelines that Eidsvag stated for integrated
education, he unselfishly shared his experience from
the extensive career as a distinguished pedagogue and
teacher and stressed the most common challenges with
which the teachers in Norway face, amongst
them being the integration of the minorities.
To learn to know, to learn to be, to learn to do and to learn
for mutual living- these are the most important rules that
need to be part of a curriculum of a good school.
During the lecture, a discussion was initiated on what
it means to be a good teachers and where the advices
of prof. Eigsvag can be applied from the participants’ perspective.
During the conference, the participants were addressed by
the Deputy Minister for education and science of R. of Macedonia,
Safet Neziri who highlighted the great importance of
integrated education in the Macedonian social context,
the need to cultivate the multiethnic and multicultural
character of the state, to overcome the stereotypes and prejudices
as well as to apply the upbringing component in all
educational institutions.
Safet Neziri Deputy Minister for education and science of R. of Macedonia
The multiethnic character of one country represents a treasure
that needs to be preserved mutually, to use the
different values and traditions, to learn from each other,
to prepare our youth for mutual and constructive living.
Respected teachers, you are the ones that through you
sacred and very important profession help raise
the awareness among students and serve as catalyzers
to overcome stereotypes and prejudices, to create an
ambiance within your classrooms that will reflect
the ethnic diversity of this country.
Integrated education is a necessity for our educational
system, following the positive practices of the various
countries, as is Northern Ireland, where integrated education
is implemented more than 30 years, we as Ministry for
education and science strive to support this tendency
and to become an active partner in this process.
In June 2012, Nansen dialogue Centre Skopje in collaboration
with the Ministry for education and science officially
marked the founding of the first Training Centre for integrated education.
Today, I stand before you and feel proud that in this Training
Centre, 90 teachers follow the training program from various
primary and secondary schools in the R. of Macedonia.
This is an indicator that motivates us to continue with
this work and to train more cadres for the implementation
of integrated education. It is not a coincidence that
the representatives from Northern Ireland are with us.
30 years ago, they faced various issues, their experience
helps you, helps all of us, when I say us I refer to
the executive sector, the government of R. of Macedonia,
the ministry for education and science of R. of Macedonia.
The good experiences should be followed by all the
teachers that are present here. These project should not stop.
Besides having friends, maybe we will also have enemies
that will oppose these projects.
We will try, with all our available mechanisms, for the good
of our students from primary and secondary education
not to stop with our work, to continue further because
the future of this state, I will reiterate again, is when
we have a healthy youth.
It is not a coincidence that I am here,
I also feel that I am part of this project. I personally am
a big supporter of integrated education, when I speak
for myself I can freely say the same also for the Ministry
of education and science and the Government of R. of Macedonia,
because we come across everyday issues in the R. of Macedonia,
the biggest issues of certain groups of interest that
wish to harm interethnic relations are unfortunately expressed
within the education system of R. of Macedonia.
With the help of the international community and
friends from the European Union and widely we strive in
various ways and means through different projects to enable
our youth in primary and secondary education to get to
know each other and not only to live close to each other.
We are all witnesses of a large number of problems
that occur within our youth, do we work enough?
I am not referring only for you present here today, I speak
for all that are directly involved in the educational and
upbringing process. We have schools where the education
is carried out in two or three languages, they leave
and enter the school, and do they even greet each other?
Thanks to the projects like the one of Nansen dialogue
Centre Skopje that has been particularly successful
especially in many schools in R. of Macedonia
the results follow consecutively, i.e. this is a functional
system that needs to continue and should not stop.
We will continue further, a big gratitude for the success
and best wishes to the Nansen dialogue Centre Skopje
to continue further, our friends from Norway that support us
financially in various ways and all our friends that wish us to
continue further, I greet everyone that is present here.
On the topic integrated education many foreign experts
presented their perspectives, prof. Steinar Bryn
from the Nansen center for peace and dialogue in Lillehammer,
Norway highlighted the trends tendencies and the necessity
for this type of education. His long years of experience
in the Balkans related to the reconciliation process, the
integration of the educational and social system states
that the acceptance of dialogue as an attitude towards
the world and a way of communicating is the best lesson
learned which helps to overcome stereotypes and prejudices
during the communication between the communities.
Professor Bryn highlighted the importance of building integrated
societies in which the citizens will be provided equal
access to resources and possibilities also by highlighting
that it is impossible to achieve without integrated education.
Bryn clarified that integrated education helps for mutual
understanding and represents a starting point for
cultivating respect that the various ethnic communities deserve.
Steinar Bryn Nansen Centre for peace and dialogue
The best practices from the field of integrated and intercultural
education in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia were
presented through the presentations of the representatives from the
Nansen dialogue Centers in Sarajevo, Mostar and Osijek.
Ljuljjeta Goranci- Brkic from the Nansen dialogue Centre
Sarajevo presented the activities, efforts and achievements
of NDC Sarajevo in the field of integrated education.
By presenting the different types of divided educational
systems that are presents throughout the regions
of Bosnia and Hezegovina, the current situation of the
educational system was presented and the way that the
expressive ethnical division within the society effects
the young generations.
Ljuljjeta Goranci- Brkic Nansen dialogue Centre Sarajevo
Due to the lack of mutual activities and collaboration between
the school administrations, teachers staff and the students
from various ethnic communities and with the goal of
providing solutions for the problems and challenges which
have occurred from the divided educational system,
NDC Sarajevo implements series of activities in several
schools in Srebrenica, Bratunac, Zvornik, Jajce,
Prijedor and Sanski Most.
The director of the Nansen dialogue Centre Mostar, Elvir Djuliman
presented the project “Education for all- overcoming the
differences in Stolac”, implemented by NDC Mostar
with the goal of developing an integrated and
inclusive sector in Stolac with the active inclusion of the
teaching cadre, students, parents and local authorities.
Elvir Djuliman Nansen dialogue Centre Mostar
The activities of NDC Mostar represent an important
base for raising the level of integration between the ethnically
divided institutional and administrative structures within the schools.
The first working day of the two day international conference
on integrated education was wrapped up with the presentation
by Suzana Agotic from the Nansen dialogue Centre Osijek
that presented the efforts and activities of the center focused
on integrated and intercultural education, education for
peace and dealing with the past processes. The three
models for education of national minorities in Croatia were
presented as well as the structure and conditions of the
education sector in Vukovar.
Suzana Agotic Nansen dialogue Centre Osijek
With the aim of establishing integrated and intercultural
primary education in Vukovar, NDC Osijek has developed
the concept “Nova Skola” in accordance with the needs
of the teachers and parents who live and work in Vukovar.
The results of the research conducted by NDC Osijek have
shown that 81,25% of the parents in Vukovar have positive attitude
towards enrolling their children in ethnically mixed classes.
The basic characteristic of the concept “Nova Skola” is the
subject titled “Cultural and spiritual heritage of the region”
that puts a strong accent on the values for which the parents
have considered that their children should nourish.
Agotic presented the Manual for teachers dedicated
for the implementation of the program “Cultural and spiritual
heritage of the region” which is approved by the Agency
for education and training of teachers as a teaching resource
for the implementation of the intercultural content in the
primary schools.