Open Society Education Update

Forty-six participants from 12 countries attended the second workshop on Managing the Process of Change II in Riga, Latvia. The Workshop was hosted by the Soros Foundation Latvia and sponsored by the Education Program Support Unit (EPSU) of OSI Budapest. The 6-day event was a follow-up of the first Workshop on the topic that was held in May, 1997 at Lake Balaton in Hungary. Country teams of foundation program managers, professional trainers, and school leaders participated. The first day of the workshop was dedicated to sharing experiences among the foundations and the second day was dedicated to school visits. Then, the four-day seminar on Managing the Process of Change II was delivered by Michael Fullan, Carol Rolheiser and Joanne Quinn of the University of Toronto. The purpose of the Workshop was to link management of the change process to the overall approach to school improvement, to deepen our understanding of managing change and the obstacles to change, and to develop training skills for working with educators in the management of change. "Every time we try to introduce a new program in schools, we have to deal with change," said Karel Vasta, Czech Republic. "Managing the change process is linked to all of our programs." As a follow-up to the workshop, the Toronto team is developing a trainers guide and participants manual which is based on the materials presented. It will also include case studies of school change from the region that were provided by course participants. The materials may be translated and adapted for use in the countries of the region.

SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT: One of the aims of the workshop was to define what is meant by school improvement. Although the conference did not produce a one-sentence definition, a common understanding of school improvement in this region is emerging through the cooperation of Soros Foundations working in the field. Four Foundations presented their models of school improvement programs – they vary in their names, approaches and goals. However, they all have key characteristics in common: they aim to promote school-based change and improvement through training, parental involvement, and networking among schools. The following five articles outline the different approaches to school improvement, as presented by Latvia, Belarus, Czech Republic, Moldova and Albania.

EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS PROGRAM IN LATVIA – A FIRST-HAND LOOK:

Participants had the opportunity to visit 11 of the 28 schools involved in the SF Latvia’s Effective Schools Program. The program aims to promote the development of schools according to their own priorities. Schools are supported by training and consultations by the project. School principals, teachers, students and parents are encouraged to work together to solve the school’s problems and work toward overall school improvement. All schools in Latvia were given the opportunity to participate in the project. Out of 48 school and school board teams who applied, 30 were chosen. The criteria were the school’s desire to carry out changes, geographic coverage of all regions, reaching out to provincial schools, and inclusion of minority schools in the second phase. The types of changes that schools aimed for were professional development of teachers and staff, cooperation with the parents and the local community, improvement of teaching methods, curriculum improvement, and school development planning. The success of the project, now in its third year, was evident. Even in poor, rural schools with few resources, conference participants noted that teachers, parents and pupils were excited about their school and about their work. Students noticed real change and improvements in their classes and the teaching methods. After school clubs, school fund-raising, on-going professional development of teachers and increased parental involvement were all documented success indicators of the project. For more information on the Latvia program, contact Marite Seile, Program Coordinator at marites@lanet.lv.

Ludmilla Dementyeva and Sofia Savelova presented on activities in Belarus since the closure of the Bularussian Soros Foundation in the Spring. "The question is, how to keep a program working with no central financing," said Sofia Savelova, School Director and trainer. "We united educators from higher education, teachers, and publishers. Together they form the Belarussian Association of Innovative Schools." The Association meets regularly and forms a group of mutual support. It is legally registered in Belarus as an independent NGO. "Since we cannot work on a mass scale, we aim to create a regional environment for change," reports Ludmilla. She and her colleagues have been working as volunteers in the project, and they are enthusiastic to keep going. Workshop participants from Lithuania and Latvia have offered their support in training, materials and other logistical help for their Belarussian colleagues. For more information on the activities in Belarus, contact Ludmilla Dementyeva at (375 172) 33 04 61, fax: (375 172) 39 66 77.

CLUSTER PROJECT IN ALBANIA

The Cluster Project of the Albanian Education Development Program (AEDP) is unique in that it approaches school improvement with a comprehensive K-12 model. The "Cluster" is a feeder-system in a rural area of two kindergartens, 8 primary schools all feeding into a single high school. The aims of the project include support of teacher development, improving the learning environment, reducing the drop-out rate of students, and designing a sequential curriculum. The AEDP reconstructed these schools with the involvement of the local community, established a Step by Step kindergarten site, and began supporting locally based initiatives from parents, teachers and school headmasters. The program also involves the local university and the local education authorities to promote the integration of ‘bottom-up’ school change into the system. The Pedagogic Institute is also involved in the program by providing consultants to the teachers and school directors. Over 2,500 students and 180 teachers have benefited from the program. After three years, the program is seeing results. The drop-out rate of students has decreased, there are better student-teacher relationships, and the community is more involved in the schools. "We believe that bottom-up changes lead to sustainability. We must start with building trust and confidence at the local level," said Zana Lita, Programs Manager. For more information on the Cluster Project, contact Bardhyl Musai at the AEDP, (355 42) 277 31 or Zana Lita at zlita@aedp.tirana.al.

STRATEGIC PLAN FOR SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT IN CZECH REPUBLIC

The Czech Republic is getting started with its school improvement program this year. Karel Vasta presented their strategic plan which other participants found extremely useful and well thought-out. The Foundation sent a letter to all primary and secondary schools in the Czech Republic inviting them to participate in their program. 40 schools responded, and of those 40 schools, 24 were selected to be part of the school improvement program. The criteria used were the schools’ willingness to change and to take part in the rigorous training program planned by the Foundation. (The schools that were not selected tended to seek only material benefits from the Foundation such as computer labs or sports facilities.) A contract was signed with each of the schools obliging them to actually attend all training planned by the program. The program will have 5 stages: Preparation, Training, Projects Preparation, Start of Changes, and Evaluation/Dissemination. "We are here when the changes start, but it may take 5-10 years. We hope that these people will be advisors to others in the future," said Karel Vasta, Program Coordinator. The first workshops of the program will be for school teams of 3-5 people, including the principal and teachers. It will concentrate on team-building, communication, classroom observation, and management skills. "Then, for the projects preparation stage, the whole school must work together." For more information, contact Karel Vasta at karel.vasta.ecn.cz.

The Soros Foundation-Moldova’s Transformation of Humanities program is in its second year of promoting school improvement. After its initial competition, 18 schools are involved in the teacher training program which aims at improving teaching methods and content in the humanities. Schools in the villages, in the regional centers and in Chisinau are involved. Local trainers have now trained over 200 educators, including school inspectors, university professors, and staff of the pedagogic institutes. "What is important now is that this network of 18 schools works together to solve their problems," said Neli Mitchevici, Program Coordinator. The Foundation has established resource centers in each of the 18 schools that now serve as centers for educators in those regions. All materials from the Foundation’s Pro Didactica program get distributed through the schools.

TRAINING FOR LIBRARIANS: The Moldovan Foundation recently sponsored a workshop for the librarians of the resource centers, on October 6-7. The seminar aimed to discuss the issues connected to promoting the books and teaching materials. The seminar covered topics such as "ABC of Reading," "The Structure of School and the Role of the Library," "School Library - The Laboratory of Development and Information for Children." The Center staff offered information and facilitated discussions on action plans for those who would like to start the process of modernization of the library in their school. The workshop was an opportunity to reinforce communication between the Resource Centers from schools, and revealed a series of needs that have to be addressed, in terms of professional training for librarians. There will be more workshops for this target group and for representatives from schools that will join the network this year. The program team has worked on developing cooperation with INPCD (National Institute of In-Service Training), in order to provide training to more school librarians from the country. For more on this, and first of all, with suggestions, information and sharing of your experiences in this area, please contact Ecaterina Rudacov, Lilia Stircea or Mariana Kiriakov at (3732)629555, 637506, 637501 at Pro Didactica, Neli Mitchevici or Liliana Ivanovici at livanovici@soros.md.

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RE-TRAINING OF TEACHERS IN HUMANITIES IN RUSSIA

The OSI-Moscow is in its second year of an ambitious program to re-train teachers in the humanities in 9 regions of Russia. This program is a continuation of the foreign language retraining program which started four years ago. "Teachers have to prepare children for life in the new open society, but they themselves were trained in the old totalitarian regime," says Elena Rozanova, Program Director. The program includes new methodology and new content in the humanities in subjects such as literature, Russian language, history, civics, world culture, and ecology. It aims to help teachers "teach students how to make choices and be responsible for their own decision making; to be tolerant of the views of others." According to Elena, the teachers’ attitudes about children is changing toward a more cooperative partnership. Teachers are also trying to involve parents and understand that parents and students have important educational goals that must be taken into consideration. The program has one director in each region who is responsible for 5 tutors. Most of the tutors come from the Universities in the regions. All tutors are trained by the Foundation’s trainers, and they are planning a conference of all regional tutors in January, 1998. With this approach, 900 teachers are trained each year, and the program increases its scope and improves its quality as it gains more experience. "Next year we hope to expand to more remote regions and rural areas. We are already working in Biroebijan (Jewish Autonomous Region) that is 9 hours by plane from Moscow, then 300 km by car!" said Elena. "We also want to get the school directors more involved." For more information on this program, contact Elena Rozanova, Education Program Director, OSI Moscow at roz@osi.ru or tel: (7095) 928 4632, fax: (7095) 975 2028.

On October 22-24 the International Renaissance Foundation in cooperation with the Ministry of Education of Ukraine started the first of three roundtables devoted to the issues of ethnic minorities education In Ukraine. The first roundtable took place in Odessa and was attended by 70 representatives of central and local governments, minority associations, schools and teacher training institutes. Representatives of Greek, Hungarian, Moldovan, Roma, and Romanian communities shared their vision about perspectives of modern educational establishments in multiethnic regions and what should be transformed to meet particular needs of local communities. The participants discussed the Concept of development of ethnic minority education in Ukraine, not long ago adopted by the Collegium of the Ministry of Education. The authors of the concept were able not only hear critical remarks about their work but also collected a number of proposals on how to improve the Concept.

On November 14th the IRF and the Ministry of Education of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea held a roundtable devoted to the issues of ethnic minority education in the peninsula. The return of Crimean Tatars, Greek, Armenians and other deported people served both a revival of traditions of ancient Tavria but also resulted in a number of problems related to the shortage of schools and other educational institutions that would satisfy the needs of local communities. About 60 participants - representatives of the Ministry of Education and local minority associations - were able to raise burning issues about a balance of subjects instructed in Russian language and other languages which have appeared or demanded to be introduced in the curricula. The discussion developed along the issues of how to reallocate the budget, especially in the time of extremely scarce resources and demands from ethnic communities, while at the same time making the Russian community, most populous one and the one that used to enjoy the dominant position in Crimea, feel equal and not offended in the time of change. The discussion of the role of the Ukrainian language, as a state language, was also a focal point. At the moment Crimea has only one school with Ukrainian language of instruction. On November 28 the IRF will run the last roundtable on ethnic minority education which will be held in Uzhgorod (western Ukraine). It will convene about 60 representatives of local governments, minority associations and donor organizations. Peter Rado and Christina McDonald from EPSU OSI-Budpest will take part and make presentation about the role of ethnic minority education for development of open societies in transforming countries. The materials of the roundtable will be collected and prepared in the form of analytical report which will be published in the end of this year and presented to the Ministry of Education of Ukraine and the Administration of the President of Ukraine as a proposal for strategic actions in 1998- 99. For more information, contact Anatolii Oleksienko at ao@issep.freenet.kiev.ua.

The Open Society Institute - Uzbekistan sponsored two major events this fall to support the introduction and spread of human rights education in the country. The first event, held in the last week of October, 1997, was a workshop primarily for teachers and methodologists. The aim of the workshop was to create a pool of teachers and educators who could eventually develop HR curricula and materials for Uzbekistan. This workshop was co-sponsored by the Republican Center for Education (part of the Ministry of Education). "Teachers got ideas on how to start human rights education in their schools," said Alisher Kasymov, Programs Director, "they emphasized that we did something special for teachers." Felisa Tibbitts of Human Rights Education Associates and Krzystof Stanowski of the Foundation for Education for Democracy in Poland were the co-presenters of the worskhop. Directly following this workshop, the Foundation sponsored a 7-day Human Rights Education camp for student teams and a teacher-advisor from every oblast of Uzbekistan. Students were selected on the basis of an essay competition on the topic of "What are Human Rights." The camp included training for both the teachers and the students in Human Rights Education. It was co-sponsored by the Tashkent Center for Public Education. For more information, contact Alisher Kasymov at akasymov@osi.freenet.uz or Shakhlo Ashrafkhanova at shakhlo@osi.freenet.uz.

CIVIC EDUCATION WORKSHOP IN MONGOLIA

The Open Society Institute-Mongolia sponsored a three-day Civic Education Workshop for teachers, September 18-20, 1997. Thirty-six secondary school teachers from all over Mongolia attended. The purpose of the workshop was to present new ways of teaching civic education and to present Democracy for All book which was translated into Mongolian. Ms. Elizabeth Chorak from Street Law, Inc. was the workshop presenter. "For the first time, teachers were presented with how to teach rather than what," said Narantuya, Foundation Program Coordinator. "The workshop provided teachers with a chance to learn new, more lively approaches of teaching the basics of democracy in interesting, entertaining and engaging way. This was very different from the top-down, more paternalistic way of teaching based on memorizing." The teachers that attended the workshop also received resources, and eventually the Foundation hopes they will be trainers for another 1,150 civic education teachers in the country. This will be achieved through a series of regional and local seminars. In addition to the training efforts, the Foundation is also working to reform the civics curriculum for secondary schools and it plans an essay competition on Civil Society and Secondary Education. For more information, contact Narantuya at narantuya@soros.org.mn.

KARL POPPER DEBATE PROGRAM - UPCOMING EVENTS!!

The Karl Popper Debate Program, sponsored by OSI for high school and university students in the region, is pleased to announce three international debate events in November and December. A teacher training seminar will be held in Budapest, November 23-27, 1997. Three dozen KPDP teachers will come to Hungary from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Yugoslavia, to develop and share exercises and a curriculum for debate instruction. Jeanette Mason, an American consultant who has taught debate for many years in the United States, will coordinate the seminar masonje@ceu.hu.

University students from twenty-three countries in CEE/fSU, and Haiti, will also be in Budapest, November 26-30, for a debate seminar and tournament. The teams of two students and their coach, many of them former high school debaters, will learn the mechanics of developing and sustaining a university debate program. The seminar will culminate in a two-day parliamentary debate tournament, where students pose as speakers for the government or the opposition in an imaginary house of parliament, debating such topics as "this house supports euthanasia." Contact Arlo Devlin-Brown, one of the American consultants who will coordinate the conference, for more information adevlin@law.harvard.edu.

Finally, an international tournament will bring high school students from eleven countries to debate in English in northern Romania this Winter Holiday season. Cezar Dumitriu, a national debate coordinator, announced the tournament in Brazov, Romania, December 20-27, 1997. Fifteen teams are expected to participate, six from Romania and one each from Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Moldova, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Yugoslavia. A quaint Transylvanian city, Brazov is near the Dracula Castle and a mountain resort favored for winter sports, Dumitriu says, suggesting that debate will not be the only recreation available. For more information, contact Cezar Dumitriu of the Open Society Foundation Romania dcezar@buc.soros.ro.

PARTNER PROFILES

Compiled by Andrea Feld, EPSU, felda@osi.hu

CIVITAS: WORLD-WIDE NETWORK FOR CIVIC AND POLITICAL EDUCATION: This International Consortium for Civic Education aims to strengthen effective education for informed and responsible citizenship in new and established democracies. The CIVITAS Consortium is composed of individuals and non-governmental institutions from around the world. Civitas undertakes to maintain a world-wide network, using all available resources, including computer networking, international exchange and other appropriate means, that will bring the knowledge, skill and experience of education for democracy. CIVITAS was inaugurated at an international conference of 450 civic educators from 52 different countries gathered in Prague in June 1995 to discuss the importance of a civic culture to the successful consolidation of democratic governance in the countries in transition. At the conference the web site Civnet was first introduced which was transformed into a journal in May 1997. Civnet contains: a civics resource library, civics lesson plans, syllabi, and recent writing and speeches, a listing of organizations and programs that support and promote civic education, a calendar of events dealing with civic education, a civforum discussion group and a civarchive of past issues. Website: http://www.civnet.org

ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE EDUCATION IN YUGOSLAVIA: Petnica Science Center is a unique non-governmental institution founded in 1982 with the aim to educate gifted boys and girls in age group 14-18 who are highly motivated and interested in science. The PSC has gained international recognition for its innovative methods of science education as well as for results in extra-curricular activities. Instead of using marks and rigid discipline, the Center offers flexible programs, interactive teaching with no regional, ethnic or social limits for students. Its young staff of 20 professionals is supported by a thousand of enthusiastic scientists and teachers. Design, realization and evaluation of complete educational programs is carried out by external professional scientists by invitation. Every year the Center provides around 100 different programs, including seminars, workshops, science camps and courses to over 400 high schools and about 1600 elementary schools in Yugoslavia and abroad. In 1996 PSC received students also from Macedonia, Slovenia, Croatia, the Netherlands, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Hungary and Russia. If you are interested in reading more about this attractive educational center, please visit their website at www.psc.ac.yu.

EAST EUROPEAN PARTNERSHIP: East European Partnership enables people from abroad to work alongside people in Eastern and Central Europe in order to share skills, build capacities and promote international understanding and action. The organization has very strong partnerships with both local government and local non-governmental organizations, for example in Russia. In Bulgaria they are working in education, social welfare and NGOs. Their Baltics program and the one in Macedonia have done substantial work in areas such as services for people with disabilities and business education. EEP sends volunteers to work as agricultural advisors, social workers, health education and research specialists, teachers for deaf people, NGO support workers, marketing and business specialists, bankers and business advisors, etc. EEP has a regular magazine called LINK. In order to get a copy, please send an e-mail to jneedham@vso.org.uk or a fax to 44 181 780 7550.

ADULT EDUCATION RESEARCH EXCHANGE: Adult Education Research Exchange disseminates information on adult education and learning with significant coverage in Central and Eastern European as well as the Baltic Countries. Its regular publication includes descriptions of events and activities, development and research, strategy and system of research, opinions and suggestions. AE Research Exchange is published two times a year by the Slovene Adult Education Center (SAEC). If you are interested in receiving the publication, please contact the Slovene Adult Education Center, Smartinska 134a, 1000 Ljubljana, tel: 386 61 446 482, fax: 386 61 445 581, e-mail: tajnistvo.saec@infosol.mss.edus.si