Schools in Bujanovac municipality are completely separated, meaning that even the facilities are only for Albanian or only for Serbian school. Roma children attend Serbian schools in most of the cases. The school buildings are situated in the parts of municipality mostly populated by one of the ethnic communities. This situation adds to widening of ethnic divisions, creating inaccurate images about “the others”, since young generations learn only about their own community. In that way, communities continue living separately and there is no meaningful communication on the issues of the concern for all in this small geographical area.
If we consider two major tasks schools should fulfil: to provide a solid education and to prepare young generations for participation in social life, we will realise that the latter task has not been fulfilled successfully in our region for almost 15 years.
In order to open the channels of communication, improve inter-ethnic cooperation in the educational sector as well as support teachers in their efforts to create responsible citizens by stressing values, rights and obligations, NDC Serbia decided to initiate the project: Education for Peace in schools in Southern Serbia.
Aims:
Medium term:
- To influence improvement of inter-ethnic cooperation in Bujanovac
- To plan regular school subjects (such as sports, foreign languages, computer courses, etc) as joint activities for Serbian and Albanian students
Short term:
- To raise awareness of the neccessity for cooperation between Albanian and Serbian teachers, parents and students
- To gain school principals' and teachers' support for organising inter-ethnic activities for students
- To educate teachers on conflict transformation techniques and new teaching methodologies
- To foster multi-ethnic cooperation in schools by organising dialogue activities for teachers and students (Education for Peace)
Two seminars were held in the first half of the year 2006:
1. “Dialogue and communication skills”, 14-16 April 2006 – facilitated by professor Čedomir Ćupić and Tatjana Popović
2. “The importance of democratic development of society and civic participation in social activities”, 15-18 June 2006 – Facilitated by professor Čedomir Čupić, Tatjana Popović and Danijela Galović
Some of the topics were:
1. Social crises and values system
2. Citizens participation in political and civic initiatives
3. Obstacles to the democratic development
4. Dialogue and Tolerance
5. Communications skills
6. Conflict analysis tools
7. Negotiation games
Participants were genuinely inspired by the topics. They participated actively in discussions, asked many questions and gave examples from their own working practice, contributing to discussions by doing so. Some of them questioned each others convictions, openly discussed opposing opinions and were open to learning and practicing new techniques. Teachers were completely engaged in the negotiation exercises. For most of them this was an introduction to the negotiation skills and they found them indeed useful and applicable in their working environment.
The third seminar planned for this year will be held 19-22 October in Banja Vrujci.
Participants will be teachers from Bujanovac, this time from primary and secondary schools. We decided to include teachers from the primary school on suggestion from some teachers who work both in primary and secondary schools. They also found the dialogue and conflict transformation techniques to be very useful and applicable in the teaching process in primary school as well.
At the end of November the fourth seminar will be organised for participants chosen from all 3 groups. The idea is to form a small reference group that will continue cooperation at local level by exchanging teaching materials and organising joint activities for pupils of all nationalities.
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