Sitemap

Dr Stevan Jokić, Professor - Scientific Advisor

Challenges Of Contemporary Education And How To Overcome Them

A society’s attitude towards its heritage is most evident through its attitude towards the level of scientific literacy of every member of the young generation and the assistance provided to teachers and schools in achieving this goal.

Because that’s the only way the civilisation of the 21st century can competently confront the following challenges:

• The necessity for each individual’s conduct to be harmonised with the concept of sustainable development;

• Existing development in which nature is to the fore and everything else is subservient, with which activities characteristic of the industrial revolution are reduced drastically;

• New technologies that are characterised by multi-disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity and trans-disciplinarity, coupled with a reliance on nanotech, cognitive technologies, information science and biotechnology;

• The teaching approach introduced by the ancient Greeks, which experienced significant transformation during the Renaissance, with the advent of the printing press, when Montaigne himself said that he would rather have a guide with a well-made head than a well-filled one, and now it is set to undergo even more significant changes with the advent of digitalisation.

That’s why every educator, tutor or subject teacher, of any educational institution at any level of the education system, is confronted by the following three questions:

Who are we addressing today? Young people whose education is provided through the use of book culture and screen culture; users of the results of the first quantum technological revolution, but contemporaries of current trends of the second quantum technological revolution, as well as a cultural, cognitive and psychological shift; youngsters who look at a picture for seven seconds and take 15 seconds to find an answer, who spend more than five hours in front of some kind of screen and will, in the next few decades, have a vocabulary that’s about 30,000 new words richer… Nevertheless, the data shows that, on the basis of a survey of approximately 900,000 adolescents in France (data from the magazine CLEFS NO64, 2014, p.30), upon completing primary and secondary school, around 25% of pupils are unprepared for the challenges they face today! I don’t have the data for Serbia!

Dr Stevan Jokić, professor – scientific advisor, served as a gymnasium-high school professor and teacher of a school for economics students; held the posts of sub-dean and dean of the University of Kragujevac Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and scientific director at the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences. He is a recipient of the international PurKwa award of the French Academy of Sciences for his contributions to the scientific literacy of the children of the planet, while he has also been decorated three times by France…

What should we offer them? Perhaps curricula that, apart from taking a disciplinary approach, will also use an interdisciplinary one, with complex topics from everyday life. The possibility of providing greater freedom for teachers and the more active participation of pupils in the teaching process, with the use of non-formal and informal education, and more formative evaluation.

How can that be done? Try to apply teaching approaches based on research, projects, STEM and STEAM ((Science, Technology), Engineering/Art, Maths). These teaching approaches are coherent and attractive to all learners, because they respect not only their social, cultural and geographical differences, but also the specificities that are imposed on them by every school-centred situation.

Education is a discipline of intervention, because the teacher has to react in an appropriate way at a given moment. That’s why they need resources, first and foremost! Under the scope of the Hands in the Dough (Ruka u testu / Hands-on) project, over the course of 20-odd years, teachers had at their disposal 20 books (mostly translated from French and English), 15 books in digital format available to be downloaded for free, around a dozen types of inexpensive experimental boxes that can be made in every school, the YouTube channel Informatika i nauka za sve [Informatics & Science for Everyone] (40,000 views), the website Ruka u testu [Hand in the dough / Hands-on] (containing more than 3,000 pages), around a dozen exhibition-workshops, multiple seminars, lectures etc. These resources were created within the framework of: the contract between the French Academy of Sciences, the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts – SANU and the University of Belgrade; international cooperation under the scope of EU projects SUSTAIN and FIBONACCI; cooperation among the collaborators in the Ruka u testu project and foundation La main à la pâte, the global network of science academies InterAcademy Partnership – IAP and the French Institute in Belgrade, with which we are also implementing this exhibition-workshop “Science and informatics for every child”.

More...

Dr Aleksandar Misojčić, Psychiatrist

Words Connect People Like Bridges

If the 19th century was the age of neuroses, and depression the plague of the 20th, then the 21st century is marked by loneliness....

Gala Jovanović, ballerina

When the Stage Becomes the Only Reality

I have danced many roles that, as a little girl, seemed completely out of reach. In the moments before a premiere, I would often...

Alessandro Aresu, policy adviser and strategic thinker

Political Capitalism and the Geopolitics of Technology

In my work, both as a writer and public policy expert, I have focused particularly on the relationship between economics, politics, and technology, to...

Marijana Savić, founder and director of association ATINA

The Fight for Women, The Future We Build

Today, with the French National Order of Merit pinned to my chest, I still see recognition not as an endpoint, but as a call...

News

EBRD Backs Serbia’s Clean Air Agenda

In a move poised to reshape Serbia’s environmental trajectory, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has granted a...

Ecuador and Brazil Seal 2026 World Cup Berths as Qualification Race Heats Up

With just under two years to go until the expanded 2026 World Cup kicks off across North America, thirteen...

Eurospin Enters Serbia

The Italian discount retail chain Eurospin, through its company Eurospin EKO, is officially entering the Serbian market. According to the...

Air Serbia Adds Mykonos to Its Summer Network

Air Serbia has launched a new direct route between Belgrade and the Greek island of Mykonos, with the first...

US and China to Resume Trade Talks in London

In a high-stakes diplomatic turn, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng is set to meet top U.S. officials in London...

EBRD Backs Serbia’s Clean Air Agenda

In a move poised to reshape Serbia’s environmental trajectory, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has granted a...

Ecuador and Brazil Seal 2026 World Cup Berths as Qualification Race Heats Up

With just under two years to go until the expanded 2026 World Cup kicks off across North America, thirteen...

Eurospin Enters Serbia

The Italian discount retail chain Eurospin, through its company Eurospin EKO, is officially entering the Serbian market. According to the...

Air Serbia Adds Mykonos to Its Summer Network

Air Serbia has launched a new direct route between Belgrade and the Greek island of Mykonos, with the first...

US and China to Resume Trade Talks in London

In a high-stakes diplomatic turn, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng is set to meet top U.S. officials in London...

EBRD Backs Serbia’s Clean Air Agenda

In a move poised to reshape Serbia’s environmental trajectory, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has granted a...

Ecuador and Brazil Seal 2026 World Cup Berths as Qualification Race Heats Up

With just under two years to go until the expanded 2026 World Cup kicks off across North America, thirteen...

Eurospin Enters Serbia

The Italian discount retail chain Eurospin, through its company Eurospin EKO, is officially entering the Serbian market. According to the...

Air Serbia Adds Mykonos to Its Summer Network

Air Serbia has launched a new direct route between Belgrade and the Greek island of Mykonos, with the first...

US and China to Resume Trade Talks in London

In a high-stakes diplomatic turn, Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng is set to meet top U.S. officials in London...