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Education News and Publications
2005 OSI Education Conference
One of the main objectives of the OSI conference "Education and Open Society:
A Critical Look at New Perspectives and Demands," held in early July in Budapest,
was to discuss education from a number of different perspectives –
including international trends, the role of civil society, human rights, diversity,
the value of social responsibility and regional perceptions of democracy – and
to help identify what OSI and its partner networks should focus on over the
next few years. The conference was attended by participants from more than
30 countries, from Soros Foundations and the OSI-related network of NGOs,
education policy centers, education ministries, and governmental
and international organizations. The conference helped to set a context for
our future work and encouraged participants to look at connections between
globalization, democracy and education and how education sits in the middle of
these relationships. Among the key challenges of today discussed at the event
were increased social inequalities, both in access to high-quality education and
in wealth distribution. These negative trends are global in character despite
the education reforms and new policies introduced over the past decade. A
lively discussion in the final session identified some of the possible priorities
for the upcoming years: strengthening local capacity to assess and critique
policy ideas brought in from other contexts; developing authentic local examples
and expressions for human rights, and open-society values; project collaboration
on program content and delivery in areas such as civic education, minority
education, human rights and education; and promoting the monitoring and measuring of
open-society values in education. The conference summary and detailed report,
as well as the evaluation, are available at the following site (in the section
"conference papers"): http://soros.multeam.hu/initiatives/esp/conference/.
A summary of recent developments in education across the post-communist world
prepared for the conference by Transitions Online at OSI’s request
is available here.
The Roma Education Initiative: Has the Work Finished?
The Roma Education Initiative (REI) is in its final year of operation. Since its inception in 2002, it has been supported jointly by Children and Youth, OSI-NY and the Education Support Program, OSI-BP and has been implemented in seven countries: Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. In addition, REI has provided technical assistance to other national efforts focused on Roma education in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo.
Based on OSI’s long-term involvement in Roma education and lessons learned, REI was established as an effort to pilot a new comprehensive model of how to target Roma children and youth of the 0-18 age group, by involving Roma parents, communities and NGOs, promoting close collaboration with schools and local authorities, and by introducing inclusive and multicultural pedagogies in classroom practice. REI was an exceptional initiative designed to work both on the international and national level, combining grants, technical assistance and networking. All projects implemented by a consortium of local partners were encouraged to have a project implementation period of at least three years, the minimum amount of time considered necessary for a project to have a systemic impact.
Two of REI's projects (Serbia and Slovenia) have completed the full three-year cycle with OSI support. In other countries projects were developed later and will need another year to completion. These projects have now applied to the newly formed Roma Education Fund.
The Roma Education Fund developed as an outcome of the highly successful regional conference on Roma in July 2003: "Roma in an Expanding Europe: Challenges for the Future." At that time it was decided: (a) to establish a Decade of Roma Inclusion 2005-2015, during which countries would focus on reducing disparities in key economic and human development outcomes for Roma; and (b) to establish an international Roma Education Fund. The Roma Education Fund (REF) was formally established as a Swiss foundation in January 2005. (More information can be found on their website: http://www.romaeducationfund.org/.)
The final REI International Team Meeting was held in Milocer, Montenegro on 12-14 June. Teams from all participating countries discussed: the international lessons learned from REI in relation to the four expected outcomes of the project (desegregation, educational outcomes, policy impact, implementing the comprehensive approach), gaining a deeper understanding of approaches to REI implementation, and developing strategies for moving forward. The teams agreed to try to continue their work by applying to the REF, to continue a dialogue with OSI about what role OSI could play in supporting networking and technical assistance, and to provide thorough final external evaluations and monitoring reports to ensure the final REI report is of high quality.
The REF’s senior officer, Tunde Kovacs-Cerovic was invited to speak with project implementers about the Fund and to clarify the possibilities of applying for REF funding. More information and some preliminary outcomes of REI can be found on the initiative’s website, at http://www.osi.hu/esp/rei. These were gleaned from national-level external evaluation reports as well as from centrally collected data and were subsequently written up in a mid-term report produced in December 2004. A final REI report is expected to be published at the end of this year.
Despite the closure of REI, OSI remains committed to improving education for Roma. Through its full support to the Decade of Roma Inclusion and the newly established REF, OSI is looking for ways to remain a credible advocate of Roma education and to ensure that the critical mass of experience developed with OSI support is not lost.
OSI-related Network of Education Policy Centers Newsletter
The OSI-related Network of Education Policy Centers (NEPC) issues a bi-monthly
e-newsletter that covers education news from Europe and Central Asia. The August
2005 issue contains, among other things, an editorial that looks at education
as a means of bringing about social cohesion and resolving local and global
conflicts. The newsletter also describes education news and events in Estonia,
Kazakhstan, and Romania, and lists numerous grant and training opportunities
available from the Council of Europe, the Fulbright Commission, and OSI. To
access these and the other articles in the August newsletter, please visit
http://epc.objectis.net/Newsletter.
Past issues are also available at the website. For its upcoming issues, the
EPC Newsletter also accepts news and other materials which further its mission.
If you would like to submit information, please contact the editor, George Pataki,
gpataki@cedu.ro, by 1 October 2005.
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