Thanks to the dedication of teachers, it has been possible to broadcast thousands of hours of teaching and supplements for children and students in our educational institutions. This would not have been possible without the engagement of all our colleagues
In the first wave of the pandemic, Serbia switched to online classes in a flash. One of the winners of NALED’s team award for its contribution to overcoming the crisis caused by the pandemic is Milan Pašić – Assistant Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development, who made a major contribution to primary and secondary school students receiving quality remote learning.
What was the greatest success, and what was the toughest challenge in such a massive undertaking?
The greatest success was organising classes during and after the state of emergency, when the immediate educational work was suspended. I don’t mean just the organisation of the process, but also the enormous effort of all our colleagues – educators, teachers, principals, support staff, who supported children, students and families. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development decided immediately to record classes to be broadcast on RTS2, RTS3 and RTS Planet. At the same time, teachers were prepared to record educational materials at home.
The innovation and sacrifice shown by our teachers deserves broad social recognition, and that is why the Ministry has supported NALED in organizing a competition for the best examples of remote learning in Serbia
The Ministry of Education supported the competition ‘Magic is in the Hands of Teachers’. Why is this competition important and what are your further plans?
In April last year, NALED and the organization for career development and youth entrepreneurship Connecting, supported by USAID, launched the first national competition for the best examples of online and project teaching in primary and secondary schools. Since the innovation and sacrifice shown by our teachers during and after the state of emergency deserves broad social recognition, the competition was supported by the Ministry, the Institute for the Advancement of Education, the Republic Secretariat for Public Policy and RTS. The results were impressive – more than 700 applications from teachers from as many as 116 towns across Serbia. A unique online database was created with the best examples of remote learning and project teaching, and made available to all educators in Serbia through the website www.jpd.rs. We would like to continue cooperation on this competition in future.
Through the Public-Private Dialogue for Development project, NALED advocates project teaching and preparing our education for the 4.0 revolution. How do you see the future of project teaching in Serbia and the education system in general?
In the past few years, the Ministry has begun the digitalization and comprehensive reform of education, which I think is felt parents, students and educators. Besides digitalization, the future lies in further capacity building of our educators, and in this we can do a lot in cooperation with the civil sector and organizations such as Connecting and NALED. With them we have prepared a manual for project teaching and distance learning, translated into five languages of national minorities and distributed to all primary and secondary schools in Serbia.