SARAJEVO, Aug 29 (Hina) - Primary and secondary school students in Bosnia-Herzegovina will continue attending classes according to three separate curricula in this school year despite an agreement integrating the country's education
system, signed this summer.
SARAJEVO, Aug 29 (Hina) - Primary and secondary school students in
Bosnia-Herzegovina will continue attending classes according to
three separate curricula in this school year despite an agreement
integrating the country's education system, signed this summer.
#L#
The head of the OSCE Mission in the country, Robert Beecroft, and
representatives of the education ministries of the Serb and Croat-
Muslim entities, said in Sarajevo on Friday that the new school year
would start on September 1 and that it would show how much effort had
been invested in the reform of the education system in the past 12
months.
Recalling that the entities' and Brcko District's education
ministers on August 8 signed an agreement on joint core subjects,
Beecroft said he believed that much had been achieved.
For the first time after the war, Bosnia-Herzegovina has a
framework law on education at the state level, which means a unified
education system. Also, schools in the Croat-Muslim federation
operating separately under the same roof have been instructed to
unite their administrations.
Commenting on the agreement on joint core subjects, the education
minister of Western Herzegovina Canton, Jozo Maric, said it did not
mean the cancellation of the three national curricula, which
guaranteed the right to the protection of each people's
uniqueness.
Children who attend classes according to the Croat curriculum will
use textbooks published by "Skolska naklada" from Mostar in the new
school year as well, said Maric.
What has been changed is the fact that textbooks from the so-called
national group of subjects - such as language, history and
geography - will be revised and printed anew this year. This is the
result of several months of work aimed at removing from the
textbooks contents which may be insulting for members of other
peoples.
In this school year, classes in the national group of subjects will
require exclusively textbooks published in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
while for other subjects students will be able to use textbooks from
Croatia and Serbia.
The new school year has been marked by a slightly chaotic situation
regarding the introduction of nine-year-long primary education. An
advisor in the Serb entity's education ministry, Zlatko Bundalo,
has confirmed that nine-year primary education is obligatory in the
entity as of this year.
Nine-year primary education in the Croat-Muslim federation will be
obligatory as of September 2004.
(hina) rml