Reports and updates

The Education Support Program (ESP) is presenting its latest publication, Experiences of the Roma Education Initiative, a compilation of documentation studies based on the experiences of the Roma Education Initiative (REI) project. REI was an ambitious project funded and implemented by the Open Society Institute in partnership with Soros Foundations, Roma and non-Roma NGOs from 2002 to 2005.

REI focused on supporting early access and retention in education by providing quality education services in schools, which included Romani community involvement. REI worked on the assumption that segregation did not end once Romani children were placed in inclusive environments in integrated schools. Each national project offered a continuum of services - in school and out of school, educational and other sectors - in response to an array of needs and across various age groups. REI's reach was significant: over 20,000 students of whom 5,000 were Roma.

This anthology presents the voices of the Romani and non-Romani educators who implemented the REI projects, revealing personal insights of professional worlds and private commitments to policy change: stories, struggles, lessons learned, and strategic successes.

Equal chances through access to quality, integrated education remain shamefully rare for Romani children in Europe. There are relatively few examples of good practice or success in education. The studies in this collection contribute to the filling of this information gap. Through documenting their work in the REI project, these practitioners intend to challenge European governments to take bolder steps to ensure education justice for Romani children.

An electronic version of the publication can be downloaded from the OSI website: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/esp; for questions and information contact Christina McDonald, cmcdonald@osi.hu

Hard copy can be requested from Piroska Hugyecz, phugyecz@osi.hu.

The Education Support Program has produced a web-based calculator for data on the education of Roma. The calculator makes an important contribution to ongoing efforts regarding data collection and the lack of disaggregated statistical data for Roma in the field of education.

ESP's 2006 publication Monitoring Education for Roma described the deplorable situation regarding data on education indicators for Roma. In an effort to try to fill that need, ESP began to collect data from secondary sources and to derive, via a system of calculations and procedures, an international and comparative dataset on basic education indicators for Roma. It is the first effort of its kind.

Each calculation and procedure for deriving the statistics in the dataset is carefully documented in Monitoring Education for Roma. However, with new sources and new data continually emerging, activists and researchers need to derive updated statistical information. The ESP web calculator applet includes, and performs, all calculation procedures.

The calculator is freely available at www.soros.org/initiatives/esp/resources/calculator/.

The Africa Network Campaign on Education for All (ANCEFA) is a regional network consisting of independent coalitions or networks in 22 countries of Anglophone and Francophone Africa. ANCEFA aims to promote, enable and build capacity of African civil society to advocate and campaign for access to free quality education for all.

ANCEFA aims to achieve its mission by building networks and coalitions of civil society and engaging them in national and international dialogue in the issues of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, gender equity, resource mobilization both within and outside the African continent, mitigating the impact of conflicts and on educational achievement, and the needs of the poor, vulnerable and marginalized groups, in pursuit of universal access to free, quality education for all.

In February 2007, ANCEFA commissioned the Africa Regional Education Watch Report. This report is an attempt to synthesize reports from twelve countries in a survey commissioned by ANCEFA to assess the implementation and achievements in each country of the Education For All (EFA) goals. As a regional non-governmental organization, they initiated this through membership networks at the country level. A questionnaire, focusing on two key aspects of the education delivery system - policy and practice - was sent to National Education Coalitions in the twelve pilot countries (Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda and Zambia) for the pilot phase of what is dubbed "Education Watch". The research involved desk and field work, plus semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders.

The English version of the Africa Regional Education Watch Report can be downloaded at: www.soros.org/initiatives/esp

In partnership with OSI Southern Africa (OSISA), the Education Support Program is supporting the project to extend and develop support for national coalitions across Africa and to develop their approaches to budget tracking and monitoring of corruption in education systems.

For further information, please contact: Elijah Agnew Mbwavi Muhati, ambwabi@yahoo.co.uk; elijah.mbwavi@gmail.com

Between 2005 and 2007, the NGO Women's Action based in Montenegro conducted a project, Gender Sensitive Textbooks and Classroom Practice in the Balkan Region, with the aim to contribute to ensuring equity in primary education in the region by establishing collaboration between professional organizations and non-governmental organizations.

As a result of the project, Women's Action produced country reports on Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia and produced a regional comparative paper on textbook analysis. (It is available in Croatian by request.) The results and products of the project have been widely disseminated for teachers, students and educational institutions. The project contributed to an increased awareness and knowledge on gender issues in education and highlighted the need for implementation of principles of gender equity in classrooms as well as in textbooks.

To promote the implementation of gender equity in education, Women's Action plans further activities such as extensive presentation of the results and the recommendations with the active participation of stakeholders from all of participating countries.

For more information and downloadable versions of the reports, please visit the website: www.wa.cg.yu or contact womenaction@cg.yu; sslavica@cg.yu.

The Strategy for Civic Education in Primary and Secondary Schools in Montenegro 2007-2010 was presented to the general public, teachers and school principals as well as representatives of the diplomatic corps in Montenegro at a conference in Podgorica on December 14, 2007. This document was developed by a team of experts at the Bureau for Educational Services in cooperation with the Center for Civic Education and with support from the Foundation Open Society Institute - Representative Office Montenegro (FOSI RoM), the OSCE Mission to Montenegro and UNICEF.

Implementation of the reformed models of elementary and secondary education in Montenegro started in the academic school years 2004-2005 and 2006-2007, respectively. In primary schools Civic Education is introduced as a compulsory subject in the 6th and 7th grades, and in general secondary schools it has the status of an elective subject in all four years of schooling. Notwithstanding the good foundations set by the basic reform documents, in the last couple of years it has become apparent that there is a need for a comprehensive, strategic approach in maintaining the quality of the Civic Education subject. This strategy is the result of a year-long participatory process and joint efforts of several partners, including policy makers, teachers, representatives of the nongovernmental sectors and international organizations.

The strategy focuses on the following five key areas in order to provide a comprehensive and well-planned approach to addressing the challenges ahead: status of civic education and education for democratic citizenship in school and local communities; teaching, curricula and methodologies; teacher training; quality monitoring, assurance and improvement; and use of additional resources, e.g. NGO programmes, university courses, etc. An action plan defining in detail the contents of the activities, the timeframe, indicators and responsibilities of all the actors comprises an integral part of the strategy.

FOSI RoM provided organizational as well as technical support for developing the strategy through engaging Mr. Tomislav Reskovac, education expert from Zagreb, Croatia.

Strategy for Civic Education in Primary and Secondary Schools in Montenegro 2007-2010 is published in Montenegrin and English. It is available in electronic form at www.osim.cg.yu

Upcoming conference

The International Step by Step Association - ISSA (www.issa.nl), an innovative network of early childhood education and development professionals and organizations, welcomes proposals and interested participants from Eastern and Western Europe and from around the globe to the interdisciplinary conference Active Citizenship: Democratic Practices in Education, organized in partnership with the World Forum Foundation. This conference will provide a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas and experiences regarding how the promotion and practices of democracy, both in teaching practice and through advocacy, can affect the quality of children's lives and those of societies everywhere. Professionals and all stakeholders involved in and caring for quality and access to early childhood education and development (ECED) from the classroom to the policy level are invited to join us to explore this topic in Budapest, Hungary.

Deadline for paper submissions: 15 April, 2008

For the details of the conference and submission of papers, please refer to the conference website: http://www.diamond-congress.hu/issa2008