The South East European Educational Cooperation Network (SEE-ECN), with support from UNESCO and OSI's Education Support Program, has organized a regional workshop, "Enhancing Professional Development of Education Practitioners and Teaching/LearningPractices."
The workshop is a follow-up to a project that seeks to contribute to the professional advancement of practicing teachers in SEE countries, to a readiness for education cooperation aiming at strengthening further cross-border cooperation. At the beginning of 2005 SEE-ECN established 11 country-teams of experts, which have through the network of SEE-ECN country nodes implemented a survey to gather most important information about pre- and in-service teacher education, training, and state of the art in those areas in particular countries of the region. One of the main goals of the project is to establish better linkage between teacher academies and schools, between both levels of institutions in which the teacher education, training, and practice is taking place.
Results of the project are published in 11 country reports and a regional overview which provides assessment of the situation and needs in SEE and makes suggestions for the relevant EU and national bodies. The regional overview, as well as each country’s report, are available to the public through the following website: www.see-educoop.net/portal/tesee.htm.
The main aims of the seminar are:
- to familiarize the participants with the state of affairs and policies of enhancing the pre-service and in-service teacher education, by using the findings and recommendations of project Enhancing Professional Development of Education Practitioners and Teaching/Learning practices in SEE countries;
- to particularly stress the role of teacher training in achieving greater tolerance and mutual understanding, conflict resolution, multicultural education, education for peace;
- to encourage participating teachers to develop their own scheme of career development and professional enhancement, by emphasizing the relation between quality in-service training of teachers and quality work in their schools.
Participants will be practicing teachers (in one of the folowing levels: pre-school, elementary school, secondary school, vocational school, etc.) with at least five years of experience of working in the school. Organizers expect approximately 40 teachers, 2-3 per country (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Moldova, Macedonia, Slovenia, Serbia, Romania). At least one teacher from each country will be a representative of the UNESCO ASP school.
More information is available at www.see-educoop.net/portal/tesee.htm or by contacting the above email address.