Incheon, May 2015. Republic of Serbia delegation, consisting of Minister for Education, Science and technological Development, Mr Srđan Verbić, and the Director of the Group for Adult Education, Ms Mirjana Milanović, took active participation in the World Education Forum 2015, organized in Incheon (Korea) in the period 19.-22.5.2015. The World Education Forum 2015 is the milestone in Education for All (EFA) movement to guarantee the right to education for all. The movement started in the World Conference on EFA held in Jomtien (Thailand) in 1990, and led by UNESCO with efforts from member state governments, international organizations, and civil societies. Thanks to these efforts, oriented toward basic education with goals including early childhood and primary education, literacy, and vocational education, many countries were able to achieve remarkable progress in education including expanding universal access, pursuing gender equality, and enhancing literacy. The World Education Forum in Dakar (Senegal) in 2000 reviewed the EFA progress and adjusted the six EFA goals in the Dakar Framework for Action, defined for the period until 2015. A few months later some of the six EFA goals were integrated into the Millennium Development Goals introduced at UN Millennium Summit in New York, which presented guidance and framework for global development, but also for development at the national level, in the last 15 years. Based upon the EFA progress made thus far, the World Education Forum 2015 proposed a more developed goal for education that reflects the current global community, including not only expanding access to education but also new agendas such as enhancing educational quality and global citizenship education. These new educational agendas will become a part of the future global education agenda in connection with the Millennium Development Goals and Sustainable Development Goals. The event, opened by Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki Mun, was attended more than 130 ministries from 150 countries. Contribution of Serbian delegation was significant, because of speech of Serbian minister Mr Srđan Verbić on plenum and on introductory session of one working groups. The forum was finished successfully by adoption of Incheons’ declaration. The aims of the declaration will be integrated into the document „Post 2015 Agenda of sustainable development“ on UN September Summit as guidelines for global development efforts up to 2030. Adult Education Society in partnership with DVV International and UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning provided logistical, organizational and financial support for participation of Serbian delegation on WEF 2015.
Belgrade, April 2015. In the period 27.-29.4.2015 delegation of The Swedish National Council of Adult Education (Folkbildningsrådet) visited Serbia. The aim of the study trip is to get increased knowledge of the role of adult education and civil society organisations in Serbia in general and specifically in relation to issues of intercultural coexistence and tolerance combatting xenophobia. On the first day of the visit delegation was in Vojvodina, while on the last two days the hosts in Belgrade were Adult Education Society and Belgrade Centre for Human Rights. Apart from visits to Adult Education Society, the Human Rights House and Embassy of Sweden, the meeting were organized with other organizations that presented situation in Serbia from perspective of their work and experiences: Serbian Association of Andragogists, Centre for Women Studies, Kvinna till Kvinna, Women in Black, etc. During the visit to Adult Education Society, possibilities for widening of cooperation and further exchange of experiences were discussed.
Belgrade, April 2015. NGO Serbia on the move organized a 31st Ignite Belgrade on April 27th. This method of public speaking involves dynamic presentation of ideas in an informal setting and it is practiced in more than 100 cities around the world. The rules are simple: presentation lasts five minutes; each presentation has 20 slides; slides automatically turns on 15 seconds; presenter has no control over changing slides. The theme was “My society loves differences”. Partners of event were Network of friends of inclusive education, Fund for an Open Society, Centre for Interactive Pedagogy and Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit. Ten presenters talked about the fight for the inclusion of marginalized groups in society. Adult Education Society (AES) joined this manifestation with presentation on marginalized groups adult learner’s testimonials, collected on Adult Learner’s Festivals in 2013 and 2014. With this presentation AES highlighted importance and capacity of adult learning and education for inclusion of marginalized groups, connected with number of organizations that are actively engaged in educational inclusion, and tried to encourage some of citizens in numerous audience to engage in learning in community and support it.
SEE region, April 2015. The regional initiative of DVV SEE Network for join PIAAC study was initiated in the end of August last year on the meeting with 11 countries in Zagreb where sent a powerful message about regional need for relevant statistical data in adult education, which can be basis for the policy making and evidence based reforms. The subsequent activities in the region showed that research costs are an insurmountable obstacle for join the study for the most of the countries from SEE region, even with political support. EU institutions react on this initiative and DG Education and Culture made recommendation to DG NEAR to financially support participation of 6 counties of SEE Region (namely: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia) in OECD surveys (PIAAC, PISA and TALIS). With anticipation and new hope, we expect next decisions.
Belgrade, April 2015. Municipality of Zvezdara and Volunteering Centre of Zvezdara, one of the important partner for Adult Education Society, were organized public presentation of research results on topic „Activism of Seniors from Belgrade – needs and possibilities“. The aim of the research was to discovered statements and knowledge of the respondents about activism of seniors, causes of their social exclusion and finally what to motivate them to be active. In the section of the recommendations authors emphasized lack of continuing and accessible educational programmes and those for seniors’ empowerment. Representatives of AES actively participated to the presentation and discussed the significance of establishment of initiatives for inter- and intra-generational exchange at the level of local communities. This activities will open space and give opportunity for seniors to become more active, recognisable as valuable members of society and equal participants in communication with younger generations. This activities can be an excellent example of groups for learning in community and community development. The presentation was the great opportunity for the representatives of AES to make contacts with possible partners, which are active in the field of education for third aged population. This event gave new ideas for the activities of the upcoming Adult Learning Festival.
Belgrade, March 2015. Representatives of Adult Education Society helped with the realisation of a seminar „How to reach quality of life among a population of third age“. The event was held in Gerontological Centre of Belgrade on 4th of March 2015. The first lecture was dedicated to the topic „Active and quality life support by lifelong learning“ and was delivered by the project manager of Adult Education Society. This introductory session of half an hour raised many questions, ideas and suggestions for new learning opportunities and activities. Afterwards, participants had the opportunity to listen to topics from in the fields of sociology, health care, activism and psychology. The seminar finished with tombola, where Adult Education Society awarded six participants with vouchers for books and one month of Tai Chi Chuan and yoga training for seniors. During the launch break, possibilities for cooperation in the field of senior education was discussed with representatives from different stakeholder groups.
Belgrade, March 2015. The files of selected group of trainers are received from SVEB after validation process. This was a reason for celebration, because all of received files are successfully passed validation process at the level of SVEB 2. This evidently present the expertise of the selected trainers who are participated in the project. Furthermore, the next phase of the project Development of training and certification system for the trainers in adult education can be opened. All trainers are agreed that details of the assessment of their files can be forwarded to the validators’ team, who will use this examples as the model for the validation processes which will be held inside of established system in Serbia. Moreover, in the continuation of the project on the meeting with partners were analysed possibilities of establishment of an association in adult education. The cooperation in all key activities for the establishment of the system, scheduled for the end of the year, were also discussed. At the moment the set of the additional quality standards for organizations accreditation and expanded set of trainers’ competencies for the trainers are developing.
Belgrade, February 2015. During the period 1-4.2.2015 Adult Education Society was honoured and pleasured to host the first ever event organized by The International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) in the SEE Region. ICAE is a global network with a specific mandate to advocate for adult learning and education, representing more than 800 NGOs – regional, national and sectorial networks in more than 75 countries. The goal of the “ICAE Strategic Seminar” in Belgrade was to have “post and beyond 2015” in focus as the changed context for the advocacy work of civil society at global level, and, based on that, to discuss priorities for ICAE’s next 4-year strategic plan. It included rethinking about the profile, programmes and activities, defining goals and envisaged results needed for the future. Adult Education Society used this unique opportunity to further develop relations with adult education organizations from Europe, but also to establish relations with other umbrella adult education organizations from other parts of the world.
Belgrade, December 2014. In April 2014 European Commission invited Serbian Government to nominate its representatives for Technical Working Groups (TGW), under the Education and Training 2020 strategic framework, to actively participate in the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) mechanism. TWG will allow representatives of Serbia to participate in exchange of best European praxis and educational policies, and also to present results of strategic and reform processes in Serbia. In July 2014 Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit of Government of Serbia approached Adult Education Society with request for support for national representatives in the TWG on adult education in OMC. Decision was made to provide support, on account of other activities, having in mind that EU priority subjects are of crucial importance for further reform processes in education in Serbia, presented in National Strategy on Education. In this respect financial support is provided for participation of one participant of Adult Education TWG on two meetings organized by European Commission in the second half of the year.
SEE Region, December 2014. During the last quarter of 2014. in 5 countries of SEE regional survey on adult education providers was conducted. The aim of the survey was to collect data for evidence based lobbying. At the end of October national expert teams were formed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Montenegro and Serbia. Adult Education Society coordinated project and took responsibility for questionnaire preparation. Criteria for relevance of organization/institution as AE provider was to organize some kind activity, educational in character (lecture, tribune, training, course, round tables, class, workshop, seminars, counselling, couching, summer school…) primarily for adults that are not employed or engaged in the organization. After consultation with other partners in the region the final instrument was translated in national languages and transformed to e-form. During this process country teams formed national databases of providers On-line software (Google Forms) was used for questionnaire distribution and data collection. On-line questionnaire was distributed by e-mail to more than 2700 providers in the region. Response rate was very low, but increased after contacting providers directly by phone. At the end 414 responses were collected in total, during the period of 40 days. Analysis of the date and report will be done in 2015. To complement this report national expert teams made an overview of the system of adult education for every country in the form of collection of the key national documents on adult education and institutional setting.
Belgrade, December 2014. Beginning of new semester 2015 of Functional Elementary Education of Adult (FEEA) programme in schools in Belgrade was seriously jeopardized because schools were not provided with learning manuals for participants of the programme. In the beginning of December 2014 Ministry for Education, Science and Technological Development forwarded request of schools to AES asking for a support in manuals provision. School in Belgrade were contacted, there needs for manuals evaluated and decision was made to provide manuals for 600+ participants in 7 school involved in FEEA programme in Belgrade, on account of resources of other project activity. Manuals were printed and distributed on time and programme started in beginning of 2015 successfully.
Belgrade, December 2014. The VII Adult Learning Festival organized under moto “New Year’s gift for my town” was held in Bačka Palanka, Beograd, Bor and Kragujevac from 15th – 29th December 2014. The programme structured into three segments: promotional activities; central ceremony and public discussion in open space format on topic of learning communities and cities and video testimonials about examples of good practice of learning and teaching in community. Promotional champagne held in public places and on facebook page “Dodjoh, videh naucih! and include distribution of learning wishes cards, involve citizens into educational awards game and provide general information about adult education and learning opportunities. By this activities directly were reached more than 3000 persons. During the promotional week through media (TV, radio and print media) information about festival reached tens of thousands of citizens. The central ceremony dedicated to presentation of examples of good practice, celebration of successful learning stories, awarding educational packages and discussing capacity of our cities to become learning communities. The results of open space discussions have surpassed expectations because was found that some learning communities already exist and their member are open for sharing ideas and to help establishing similar self-organized learning structures in another environments. Some very easy applicable initiatives raised as café chats about philosophy whit seniors, mailing list for sharing experience about employment, learning through art in museums, etc. The VII Adult learning Festival in Serbia gave us so many tasks and ideas for the next festival.
Belgrade, December 2014. Adult Education Society with support of DVV International and SVEB organized training for experts who will validate trainers` files and accredit training programs and organizations which will realize training programs in adult education. The training was realized by experts from Swiss Federation for Adult Education in Hotel “Palace” on the 1st and 2nd of December 2014. The aim of this program consider establishing team for validation and accreditation of the new training and certification system in adult education in Serbia. Beside experts from Serbia this program attended by representatives of Institute for Adult Education from BiH and Centre for Vocational Education Montenegro. Considering that experts from SVEB for the first time realized this kind of training out of their country colleagues from region used opportunity to get know better the most developed European system of accreditation and certification of the trainers in adult education. On the training experts got concrete knowledge and skills, but also they have opportunity to explore and analyse key elements of the quality system in adult education in the context of the processes which partners from SEE network of DVV International initiated in the region.
Budva, November 2014. Adult Education Society in partnership with Centre for Vocational Education and DVV International partners from SEE Network organized regional meeting on the topic “Towards European Harmonization – Quality in Аdult Еducation and Staff Professionalization, ” in Budva, Montenegro on November 21 – 22. The 23 participants from 7 countries, representatives from relevant institutions, private and public sector, were participated on the meeting. Adult Education Society cause working efficiency together with participants before the conference prepared information about activities and conditions of adult education in each county on the following 4 topics: Quality indicators for accreditation of adult education providers, Qualifications standards for trainers in adult education, Training of trainers in adult education, Prior learning assessment and certification of trainers in adult education. Based on these preliminary information participants of the gathering have defined in working groups defined, and then operationally developed ideas for networking, exchange of experiences and cooperation on these issues. After two days of very productive meeting was finished with the draft of four projects, as supporting cooperation activities in the field of quality and professionalism in adult education in the region.
Leicester, November 2014. Representatives of the Adult Education Society participated on The 2nd partner meeting of AE-PRO project on November, 5th – 6th. The host of this meeting was NIACE. During the first day participants from each partner organization presented results of their work and discussed their experience with on-line management learning system as moodle. On this meeting expert from learningpool company explain how will look like and function our future AE-PRO learning platform. Following the meeting details about cours, participants’ recruitment, mobility issue, evaluation and quality assurance, promotional activities were discussed. The meeting finished with the updated timeline for the next steps and enthusiasm regarding shaping future on-line learning platform.
Belgrade, November 2014. Adult Education Society has actively participated in the development of the Employment and Social Reform Program (ESRP) by participating in public consultations on the invitation of the Ministry of Labor, Employment, Veterans and Social Affairs, the Team for Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction and the Office for cooperation with Civil Society. By submitting comments on the draft of the measures of the second part of the Employment and Social Reform Program, Adult Education Society underlined the importance of adult education in the entire educational system of Serbia, especially in the areas of employment and quality of adult education. Participation in the development of this document represents a significant contribution and support to Serbia’s progress within the European integration since the ESRP is designed as the main mechanism for dialogue on priorities in the areas of social policy and employment, and it has been structured on the model of strategy Europe 2020 which Member States are already applying.
Podgorica, October 2014. During the XVIII Festival of Adult Education in Montenegro, which was organized by Centre for Vocational Education and Ministry of Education, the presentation was held about the activities in SEE region regarding training and certification of trainers in adult education and professionalization within this field. Presenting guest from Belgrade, Dušan Zdravković, the general manager of Adult Education Society, representatives of Centre for Vocational Education mentioned that this NGO, under the project of DVV International in SEE, has launched Festival of Adult Education in 2002 and after significantly supported this event. The presentation was attended by key social partners, representatives of Ministry of Education and Ministry of Labour and Social Welfare, Trade Union of Education, Association of Employers, Employment Agency, Pedagogical Centre, significant NGOs, public and private universities, etc. With this presentation an upcoming regional meeting with the same topic was announced, which will be held in November in Budva. After the presentation and discussion, the general manager of Adult Education Society had meeting with Duško Rajković, the general manager of Centar for Vocational Education. They expressed their contentment with the cooperation between these two organizations, which were evaluated as very significant. The decision about upcoming meeting has been made at the end of meeting.
Belgrade, October 2014. Under the project of exchange trainers and multiplicators, the second meeting between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia was held in Hotel „Park“, Belgrade on 24th and 25th of October 2014. This project has been conducted by DVV International office in Sarajevo and Adult Education Society from Belgrade with the aim of exchange and improvement of valuable experience and practice of professionals from the field of adult education. During this meeting participants dealt with the following topics: self-care management, art techniques in adult education and cooperation between trainers who work in pair. One of the sessions was organized so it was dedicated to the supervision of the trainers. Beside participation in workshops of medical qigong and free dance, participants had opportunity to visit DAH theatre and got to know possibilities of application of drama in adult education. This meetings were specific because of an open approach where participants equally involved in designing and conducting of the learning process. The second meeting of experienced trainers was closed with clear intention for continuation of initiated learning processes and hope that we can deepen this kind of learning experiences during next year.
Madaba, October 2014. The VIII ICAE Academy of Lifelong Learning Advocacy (IALLA) is an international course held this year in the Arab Region, from October 13 to 26, 2014 in Madaba, Jordan. Until now, there are 189 IALLA graduates from 68 different countries of all regions. With great pleasure we inform you that 26 candidates (10 men and 16 women) will participate in the Eighth edition of the VIII ICAE Academy of Lifelong Learning Advocacy (IALLA). The participants are from 18 countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Namibia, South Africa, Uganda, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Mongolia, Nepal, Puerto Rico, Serbia, Sweden and Ukraine). With support of the DVV International SEE region represented by participant from Serbia, who will share gained knowledge and contribute to the development of adult education in the region. The ICAE Academy of Lifelong Learning Advocacy is the main international training programme that the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) has created with the aim of broadening the vision on adult learning and helping new leaders acquire advocacy skills through a participatory methodology that includes an interlinkage analysis within and beyond the field of adult learning and education, and promoting networking as an effective mechanism for collective learning. This course is organized by the International Council for Adult Education (ICAE) in partnership with DVV International and with the support of the Swiss Development Cooperation.
Belgrade, October 2014. On the first of October, the International Day of Older Persons, representatives of Adult Education Society were invited to participate in a discussion with the Deputy Minister of Labour, employment, veteran and social issues. The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Red Cross, volunteers, beneficiaries of homes for the elderly, the Gerontological Society of Serbia and NGOs. A representative of the Association for Adult Education specifically mentioned the importance of lifelong learning for older population, especially in the areas of training for older workers, an international assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), prevention of pathological aging as well as promotion of education and learning. The emphasis was particularly on successful projects which tend to produce positive results for many years, and who need continuous support from decision-makers, such as the University of the Third Age, the promotion of active aging. During the meeting many important issues have been opened, such as health, social care and intergenerational collaboration. Education has been identified in almost every area as priority and important activity. This meeting was particularly important, because Deputy Minister expressed full support for the promotion of adult education especially for the population of senior citizens, in the field of innovative social services based on intergenerational cooperation.
