Open Society Institute Supports Education Reconstruction in Liberia

OSI's Education Support Program (ESP), together with the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA), is contributing to the renewal of the education system in Liberia.

OSI's education work in Liberia began in May 2007 when the founder, Mr. George Soros, committed $5 million to the Government of Liberia towards the implementation of the Liberia Primary Education Recovery Program. These private funds were pooled with $12 million from the Dutch government to create a unique public-private partnership in international education. The Liberia Education Pooled Fund was launched in May 2008 under the leadership of UNICEF, the lead education partner in Liberia which serves as the custodian of the Fund.

The Education Support Program is supporting the Ministry of Education with long-term technical assistance and professional development for teachers and working to develop the capacity of civil society coalitions and community-based literacy initiatives. In July 2007, OSI began working with 80 teachers based in Monrovia through the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking (RWCT) program, which promotes the use of active learning and critical thinking methodologies. Many of these teachers have now completed the full cycle of the training of trainers' model and are establishing a national association that will continue to promote the methodology across classrooms in Liberia.

At the request of the Ministry of Education, the RWCT methodology has been adapted to support the Liberia Teacher Training Project (LTTP), a $15 million USAID-funded project responsible for rebuilding the primary education teacher training system. To date, ESP has worked with the 90 pre-service and in-service teacher trainers involved in this program to improve their classroom practice. ESP has also contributed to the development of the national teacher standards as well as the teacher training curriculum for the primary level.

For more information please visit: http://www.soros.org/initiatives/esp or contact Aleesha Taylor at aleesha.taylor@osf-eu.org

FOS Serbia announces Most Inclusive Primary School Competition

The Fund for an Open Society Serbia (FOS Serbia), in collaboration with the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister's Team for Poverty Reduction Strategy Implementation in Serbia, announces the Most Inclusive Primary School Competition.

Since 2005, as part of the initiative "Inclusive Education - From Practice to Policy," FOS Serbia has been supporting the creation of conditions that ensure equal accessibility to quality education for all, particularly those children and young people who are marginalised, discriminated against or segregated on grounds of ethnic background, social deprivation, mental abilities, disabilities or disease. The Most Inclusive Primary School Competition is a follow-up to the activities within the initiative and its principal objective is to support schools which have implemented inclusion in the past five years. They have expressed willingness and initiated ideas and plans to advance inclusive approach by:

• increasing the scope of reach among children from marginalised groups;
• ensuring quality inclusion of children with disabilities and children from other marginalised groups in the educational process; increase competences of school employees;
• developing skills for cooperation with parents and other institutions in local communities;
• expanding the network of practitioners who are applying the inclusive approach;
• incorporating schools' disposition for development of inclusive education in schools' relevant documents: school development plan, annual work plan, advanced professional training plans, parental councils' work plans, plans for collaboration with parents and local community;
• incorporating criteria and indicators of good inclusive practices in the continuous process of schools' self-evaluation and adequate documenting of plans for advancement of the quality of work based on the results of their application.

In this competition, the projects for 12 months will be approved. The financial support will range between $5,000 and $9,500 per project. This open competition is meant for all primary schools in Serbia. More information on www.fosserbia.org

Guide for Advancement of Inclusive Educational Practice published by FOS Serbia

Fund for an Open Society Serbia (FOS Serbia) has compiled the Guide for Advancement of Inclusive Educational Practice as part of its initiative "Inclusive Education - From Practice to Policy." The initiative has been implemented since 2005.

The guide is intended for teachers, educational institutions and local communities, but it also features guidelines for development of the inclusive aspect of the system. It places the child at the focal point of the educational process, surrounded by creative and methodically competent teachers in a setting where fundamental human values and rights are respected.

This is an effort to present the possibilities for implementing inclusive education to teachers, educational institutions, parents, pupils, local communities and other stakeholders. The guide offers information about current inclusive educational practices in Serbia and presents examples of good inclusive practice. Although the guide grew out of practice, it nonetheless represents particular instructions for the development of inclusive policy.

Teachers, educators and expert associates from ten cities and towns in Serbia participated collecting over 300 examples of inclusive educational practice. The cases served as basis for developing a list of criteria and indicators of inclusive education.

The guide will be promoted at three roundtable meetings in teachers colleges in the near future. The guide is currently available in Serbian. For further information, please visit: www.inkluzija.org; www.savezucitelja.com or contact: tstojic@fosserbia.org.

Campaign for Quality Education website launched

The Campaign for Quality Education (CQE) website has been launched and is now available at http://www.cqe.net.pk.

CQE is a network of individuals and organizations concerned with education in Pakistan, built on the belief that educational justice entails not just access to school, but to quality education for all children. With its core guiding principles of equity, social partnership and networking, local participation, research and evidence-based advocacy, CQE seeks to promote quality in education through effective advocacy, developing and popularizing innovative solutions to quality issues in education, and regular monitoring of the state of education in Pakistan. CQE's strategy combines three main strands: advocacy, evidence based monitoring and innovation.

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