Civic Education Programme

Civic Education Programme is a part of natural multi-year development of educational activities, modified and aligned by Civic Initiatives to reflect the changes in the society.  At the very beginning, education for democratic citizenship in organisation of Civic Initiatives was oriented towards activists of nongovernmental organisations, political parties, trade unions, journalists, professors, doctors, bakers, metal processing workers...It involved thinking people in Serbia, with activities organised out of Belgrade. Until the year 2000 the respective activities were undertaken independently from formal education, since then it was almost impossible to cooperate with representatives of State institutions and thereby contribute in a formal way to democratisation of education system in Serbia. With the October changes followed by elections, institutions became more opened to cooperation with the citizens' associations, thus enabling Civic Initiatives to become involved in activities related to the subject of Civic Education.

By the Ministry decision, Civic Education or Education for Democracy and Civic Society was introduced into the education system of the Republic of Serbia in the school year 2001/2002 for first grades of primary and secondary schools.  Thereafter, the Ministry of Education has undertaken a range of systemic solutions and activities, which resulted in inclusion of Civic Education into the school curricula, linearly for all grades of primary and secondary schools, as a mandatory elective subject. First time after seven years since Civic Education became an official school subject, 8th-grade students had the opportunity to attend this subject lessons. In this way a subject, thaught as an elective in all grades of primary and secondary schools, has been rounded up.

Civic Initiatives played an important role in the curriculum development process, but also in development of the Manual for Teachers of Senior Grades of primary schools, and 3rd and 4th grades of secondary schools. Training programme for educators and teachers of senior grades of primary schools was developed in cooperation with the Ministry of Education.

Working with teachers of Civic Education, we listened to them when they spoke about what needed to be done additionally in order to improve the lessons, thus allowing students to leave school better prepared for life. In this way, we obtained a clear picture on how to adjust the curricula of other countries to the needs of Serbian students and thereby provide an additional swing to development of Civic Education.

Today, the Civic Initiatives' programme Civic Education is focused on various aspects of the Civic Education subject development in primary and secondary schools in Serbia.

• Specialist training for the Civic Education teachers in Serbian secondary schools is under way at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade, with the programme for the primary school teachers being developed in parallel. The Specialist Training Programme is delivered in cooperation with the Faculty of Political Sciences.
• Agreement between Civic Initiatives and the Ministry of Education on onset of education for the teachers of 7th grade of primary schools for application of the Manual printed this year is in the process.
• We are launching a survey on influence of the 7-year existence of this subject onto knowledge and opinions of the primary and secondary school students.
• We are launching the second survey which will last for four years aimed at measuring progress of the students who enrolled in secondary schools this year thus being introduced to Civic Education for the first time.
• Following the pilot project, "Deliberation in Democracy" lessons will be continued in seven secondary schools, based on the precisely defined steps designed to encourage the students to make their decision after considering different arguments, diligently taking into account the ones they disagree with personally as well.
• Public presentations of the students who, based to the curriculum for the 6th grade of primary schools, are learning how to resolve, in their view, the most important problem in their local community.
• Every three months we publish a magazine "Democratic Citizenship" intended for teachers and others dealing with development of civic education. In this magazine we publish information on practical policies and good practices from around the world, at the same time enabling the teachers to read more about latest developments as regards Civic Education in Serbia. The magazine is sent to addresses of all primary and secondary schools throughout Serbia.
• Civic Initiatives permanently promote the role and significance of Civic Education in the process of Serbia's development and democratisation. The objective is to improve the knowledge of students, parents, schools and public about the importance of social skills and knowledge on democracy elements and principles offered by Civic Education for their lives.