The draft Strategy for the Development of Education until 2027, which was presented by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development in the previous period, includes the development of new educational standards for primary and secondary education that will be the basis for future changes in education. This was emphasised at the beginning of training „Development of new educational standards ” for participants in working groups gathering teachers employed in primary and secondary education and university professors. The training was organized in cooperation with two projects funded by the European Union - "The State Matura Project" and "EU Support to Education Reform in Serbia – Redis 2030".
Opening the workshop, Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development Mladen Šarčević said that better educational results have been expected in Serbia for a long time.
"What we are doing now is very important, because standards and key competencies are important for life. Very soon, we will enter the process of drafting a new systemic law in which new standards of education will be introduced. We owe immense gratitude to the European Union, which is a true partner and supports us in everything, "said the Minister.
Educational standards are developed by the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation, which was requested by the Ministry to revise existing standards and develop a new concept of educational standards, in order to improve pupils' and students' competencies and functional literacy.
According to the international evaluation PISA study, which is an instrument for regular monitoring of the effects of reform changes, literacy, i.e. competence in the 21st century represents the capacity of an individual to formulate, apply and interpret knowledge in different contexts. Competence helps individuals make the well-founded judgments and decisions needed by constructive and interested citizens.
"Competences need to be learned and the school is responsible for them. Competencies include higher-order thinking, which is multifunctional - it responds to multiple and different requirements in different contexts and permeates through different social spheres - school, labour market, social networks, political processes, mutual relations, etc.", said prof. Dragica Pavlović Babić, expert on the „State Matura Project“.
Through the examples of experiences of other countries, the participants of the workshop discussed education based on competencies and its importance, and identified different levels of competencies. The „Redis 2030 Project“ experts Jelena Teodorović and Vladeta Milin spoke about the key and interdisciplinary competencies and the importance of differentiating them in setting new standards. Working groups for the revision of education standards, through this and the next workshops that the Ministry will organize on that topic, should contribute to significant changes in the system, which are expected to contribute to the quality of education in the long run, and thus to a better economy in Serbia.
