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Project activities began with a planning meeting in Vienna on 25-28 September 2003. This was co-organised with the Task Force on Education and Youth of the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and the Austrian Ministry of Education, Science and Culture. The meeting informed representatives from ministries of education in South Eastern Europe about the work of the OECD in this field and introduced overall objectives and the key elements of the project. Country representatives took the opportunity to present the activities and policies on special needs education in their respective countries. The Vienna meeting also offered participants the opportunity for study visits to schools and teacher training institutions. International experts provided an insight into the situation of special needs education in their countries.
A second meeting which took place in Sveti Stefan, Montenegro on 11-13 October 2004 provided the opportunity to discuss open questions and problems which were identified during the first drafting phase of policy reviews. It also served as an opportunity for administrators to comment on key issues of a synthesis paper prepared by the OECD.
On the invitation of the Moldovan Ministry of Education and in co-operation with KulturKontakt Austria, two experts from the Amsterdam Institute of Pedology gave a workshop on the issue of inclusive education for teacher trainers of Ion Creanga University in Chisinau, representatives of Moldovan model schools and the Ministry of Education. This activity took place on 22-23 December 2004.
Reviews of education systems
Publication of the national reports on "Education Policies for Students at Risk and those with Disabilities in South Eastern Europe": Reports for all participating countries were finally finished by the end of 2005. The 380-page publication is now available. Translation into the languages of the region is underway.
Teacher training
A teacher training seminar was organised on 21-23 June 2005 in Zagreb on the invtation of the Ministry of Education of Croatia and convened more than 30 participants, including teachers and country project administrators. Participants discussed the issues of effective inclusive schools; understanding the change process; inclusive education and students at risk. Other work was done on developing action plans for schools, on the assessment of individual education plans and differentiating instructions for students at risk. Follow-up activities of the seminar included the translation of key documents into local languages and local teacher training activities during the second half of 2005.
A second training activity was organised on the invitation of the Israeli government and held on 22-28 May 2006 in Jerusalem. The purpose of the meeting was to continue discussions on the issue of inclusive education, emphasising the development of individual education programmes and the introduction of instruments for monitoring the progress of students in classrooms. The seminar also took stock of progress made so far with established model schools and pilot activities in the field of teacher training. The Israeli Ministry of Education provided insight into education provision for Israeli children with special needs. This included an introduction to the Israeli school system and study visits to schools in Jerusalem.
Statistics and data collection
The seminar on statistics and data collection followed a proposal of country administrators agreed upon in Zagreb in June 2005. It gave the opportunity to country administrators and statistcians to get to know the central issues, current trends and working methods as used in the OECD member economies and the learn from the Hungarian experience in establishing cross-national categories to identify children with special education needs. Discussion on country-specific problems led to the identification of a framework for micro projects in order to address country-specific needs and challenges in this field. The seminar took place on 5-6 December 2005 in Paris.
Based on terms of reference developed in the Paris meeting, ministries of education developed micro projects for statistics and data gathering in order to improve the situation in this field. The contents and format of the projects differ according to country-specific needs. So far, eight ministries in South Eastern Europe have proposed projects and these will be implemented in 2006/07 with OECD support.
School development – establishment of model schools
As a result of ongoing national work, model schools have been established in each country in 2005, serving as focal points and resource centres for innovation toward inclusive education. Activities already carried out in 2005 include teacher training, involvement of parents in school activities, development of individualised education plans, enhanced community work and peer tutoring by students.
Improving managerial capacity and the facilitation of regional networking by country administrators
During the activities in Vienna, Sveti Stefan, Zagreb, Paris and Jerusalem, separate meetings were held for country project administrators which aimed to monitor the current status of the project and to plan its future development. These meetings were held back to back with training measures as described above in order to support collaboration in the national context. Participants identified the annual work programmes for 2005 and 2006.
Awareness-raising activies on policy level
The project is being implemented in the framework of the Education Reform Initiative of South Eastern Europe (Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe). The project was addressed in regular meetings of high level administrators in May and November 2005, thus ensuring feedback from respective education ministries of the region. Other organisations such as UNICEF showed great interest in closer co-operation with OECD and the country administrators such as exchange-related information with local offices in order to enhance the national impact of activities.
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