19 June 2014 Belgrade

‘’EARLY SCHOOL LEAVING AND LEARNING OUTCOMES: POLICIES, PRACTICES AND PREVENTION IN SERBIA’’

More than 60 participants representing different national and local public institutions, schools, NGOs and the media met today at cultural center REX to discuss the phenomenon of early school leaving and prevention programs available in Serbia.

TUTORING: Konferencija 2014

Conference host Mr. Marko Stojanovic from WEBIN presented the official data about early school leaving in Serbia: 3.4% of population above 10 years is illiterate; 21.9% of population above 15 did not complete elementary education while 23.9% of population completed only elementary education; 10-15% of pupils in elementary education drop out, as well as 10% of pupils in general secondary education and 30% in secondary VET.

TUTORING: Konferencija 2014

Ms. Angelina Skarep from the Ministry of Education pointed out that target value set by Serbian Education Strategy 2020 is to reduce early school leaving to less than 5% by the year 2020. She also stressed that the Government has started to work on this policy.

Professor Slavica Pavlicevic from The Preschool Teacher Education College Krusevac emphasized the importance of preschool preparatory programs in early child development as it is considered to be a key mechanism of early prevention from leaving the education in later stages.

Ms. Jelena Bubanja of WEBIN presented the TUTORING SERBIA program. Ms. Andjelija Roglic from elementary school Sutijeska Raska and Mr. Djordje Radoicic from Raska youth office presented the initial results of program piloting in Raska municipality. They pointed out that children that participated in the program succeeded to improve their marks, attainment and socialization. In addition the feedback from parents was also positive.

TUTORING: Konferencija 2014

Best practice case studies were additionally presented by NGO Pralipe from Pirot, GRUBB Foundation and LUNETA Association from Belgrade. Furthermore, the project ”Child-Oriented Cooperation Networking” of the World Vision Austria was presented to conference participants. At the same time, this was an outstanding occasion for organizations and institutions in the field to introduce one to each other and to network.

Photo gallery from the conference you may find HERE.

The conference was hosted by the Western Balkans Institute WEBIN from Belgrade in framework of project: ”Local PPPs for the reduction of early school leaving” which is funded by the U.S.Embassy in Belgrade.

For more information and media materials please contact Ms. Jelena Bubanja at tutoring(at)wb-institute.org.

Photo: Goran Pandža 2014