Reports and updates

OSI's Education Support Program, in cooperation with UNESCO's International Institute of Education Planning (IIEP) has organized a series of seminars, "Transparency, Ethics, and Anticorruption Measures in Education," since 2004. The aims of the seminars are:

• information and awareness-building regarding issues of corruption in education;
• initial exposure to methodologies of anticorruption measures; and
• initiation of policy dialogue regarding anticorruption in education.

The October seminar was organized in Tbilisi, Georgia by the International Institute for Education Policy Planning and Management (EPPM) in response to the interest of the Ministry of Education and Science of Georgia. The main topics included audits, ethics, and corruption issues in education. Representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science, international organizations, and educational institutions attended.

Presenters included Dr. Jacques Hallak, international consultant and professor at the University of Jules Verne (Amiens, France), member of the Academia Europea as well as the International Academy of Education, former Director of the International Institute for Educational Planning in Paris and of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva; Muriel Poisson, Program Specialist at the International Institute for Educational Planning in Paris; and Rimantas Sanajevas, expert, National Audit Office, Lithuania.

For more information, please contact: machabeli@eppm.org.ge.

The Roma Education Fund (REF) organized this one-day meeting to provide an opportunity for sharing experiences from the Decade of Roma Inclusion countries on how to make EU funds available for Roma education. Participants brought different perspectives on tackling Roma related issues, in particular Roma education. Representatives of state authorities who are directly involved in the administration of EU programs and funds, experts from national and regional levels, and representatives of REF-funded non-governmental organizations involved in social programs targeting Roma communities, including educational programs, took part.

During the meeting, REF Director Mr. Alexandre Marc presented the vision and views of the REF on how to make EU funds available for Roma education. In addition, presentations were held on topics such as prioritizing desegregation, the quality of education within the framework of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, and the Hungarian, Bulgarian and Romanian experiences of attracting EU funds for Roma education. The participants also had the opportunity to discuss important aspects of planning the process of designing and implementing programs and projects within the EU structural funds context to ensure that issues faced by Roma, including in education, are adequately addressed. Finally, a moderated panel addressed the subject of how to strengthen the capacity of Roma organizations, particularly concerning their human resources to ensure proper availability and use of EU structural funds for Roma issues, particularly for Roma education.

The meeting constituted a good platform for exchanging views and experiences among representatives and institutions involved in programming and implementation of EU funded initiatives at national levels in the Decade of Roma Inclusion countries members of the European Union and should lead to future contacts between participants, and transfer of experiences and knowledge which could ultimately be translated into trans-national projects, which are particularly encouraged by the European Union policy regarding structural funding.

For more information, please contact: JSzira@romaeducationfund.org

The Division on Citizenship and Human Rights Education Directorate General IV - Education, Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport of the Council of Europe invites submissions for a compendium of good practice examples on human rights education, including citizenship education and education for mutual respect and understanding. Submissions are being accepted for the primary and secondary level schooling sectors, including teacher training institutions.

The deadline for submissions is December 1, 2007.

More information can be found at: http://www.hrea.org/compendium/ or contact Yulia Pererva at yulia.pererva@coe.int

The UK charity Stonewall has conducted a major survey of Britain's secondary schools which revealed that almost two thirds of lesbian and gay pupils have been victims of homophobic bullying. The School Report, the largest poll of young gay people ever conducted in the UK, presents a shocking picture of the extent of homophobic bullying by fellow pupils and school staff.

Key findings include:

• Sixty-five percent of lesbian and gay pupils have experienced homophobic bullying.
• Of those, 92 percent have experienced verbal homophobic bullying, 41 percent physical bullying and 17 percent death threats.
• 97 percent of gay pupils hear derogatory phrases in school.

The full text of the report can be found at: http://www.stonewall.org.uk/education_for_all/research/1790.asp

Upcoming conference

The Teacher Education Policy Education Network(TEPE) was formally established at its inaugural meeting in Tallinn in February 2007 with an overarching aim to develop Teacher Education (TE) policy recommendations at institutional, national and European level. The coordinating institution of the TEPE Network is University of Umea, Faculty of Teacher Education.

TEPE will hold its 2008 conference, "Teacher Education in Europe: Mapping the Landscape and Looking to the Future," at the University of Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The aim of the conference is to address the central goals of the TEPE Network which relate to:

• Advancing research in and on TE
• Increasing mobility and extending the European Dimension in TE
• Enhancing quality through the renewal of evaluation cultures in TE

Deadline for submitting papers: December 3, 2007.

For more information about the conference and call for papers: http://www.pef.uni-lj.si/tepe2008/