Head of the European Commission Delegation to BiH, Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas and Mr. Sredoje Nović, Minister of Civil Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina opened the Final Conference of the EU funded project  “Institutional and Capacity Building of Bosnia and Herzegovina Education System” (EU-ICBE) in Sarajevo on 11 March 2008.  The purpose of the Conference was to present the project results and to introduce the documents produced by the six Project Working Groups to the wider audience in the country.

The European Union financed the EU-ICBE project through CARDS 2005 with 942,365.00€ (March 2006 – March 2008), as a follow-up project to the functional review of education sector. The project was implemented by the University of Jyväskylä (Finland), in cooperation with Gopa Consultants (Germany).

The objective of this Project was to assist the development of institutional capacities in the BiH education sector, through strengthening the efficiency and effectiveness of educational management and administration, at all levels of decision-making, for realisation of their respective, constitutionally and legally established responsibilities and functions.  

In his opening speech, Ambassador Kourkoulas highlighted that the progress in education reform has been seen in the past year and that this project played important part in this progress. “Now we have a legal framework regulating not only higher education, but also curriculum, standards and assessments”, Ambassador said, adding that “this reform indicates that this country has a capacity to move forward if there is a political agreement.”

Minister Nović underlined “that this project has prepared Directions for Strategic Development of Education in BiH with the Implementation plan 2008 – 2015 which can be used as sign-post for further reform activities”. Minister Nović also mentioned that 40 local experts and more then 10 international experts worked on this project during the last year, and their dedicated work resulted in 20 documents important for the education reform.

The main achievement of this joint project was a set of documents developing strategies and guidelines in the following topics:

• A strategy for development of education in BiH and implementation plan 2008-2013.
• Coordination of the Education sector in BiH: establishment of the Conference of Ministers of Education, development of coordination model in education system, definition of reporting lines.
• Road Map for EU integration of education system and defining the needs for statistical reporting according to the EUROSTAT requirements.
• Technical support to MoCA for establishment of the Agency for Pre-school, Primary and Secondary Education – a proposal for possible internal organisation  of the Agency drafted and handed over to Ministry of Civil Affairs   

These documents are the main instruments for helping BiH strengthen the capacities of the BiH Education System according to internationally recognised standards and best practices.

Conference of Ministers of Education – one of major achievements of the project

The Establishment of the Conference of Ministers of Education and its first session took place following the presentation of the project results. This Conference gathered 13 ministers of education from state, entities and cantonal level and representative of the Department for Education of Brčko District BiH. Apart from Ambassador Dimitris Kourkoulas, Head of the European Commission Delegation to BiH, the Confernce was attended by Mr. Miroslav Lajcak, High Representative and European Union Special Representative and Mr. Nikola Špirić, Chairman of BiH Council of Ministers.  

Ambassador Kourkoulas highlighted the achievements of the EU-ICBE Project, underlining the EU’s commitment to support BiH achieving European standards in education.

Mr. Miroslav Lajcak highlighted positive achievements regarding legal and institutional frameworks for education, priorities and strategies set in this field, adding that “discrimination in education has to be stopped” and that “European dimension and content have to be introduced in education”. Ms Lajcak said that “young people have to learn about European Union, but also contribute to the European integration process, because this generation is going to be responsible for getting Bosnia and Herzegovina to the  European Union.”

Mr. Špirić reminded participants and media representatives that “only good education is a guarantee for final success of our country”, adding that “all in Bosnia and Herzegovina agree that we need good education system, therefore everything should be done to make it function”.

At their first session, education ministers adopted Conference’s Rules of Procedure and discussed the establishment and functioning of the Council for general education.