The Educational Centre of the Parliament of Montenegro organised today, in the Parliament of Montenegro, a meeting with the principals, teachers, pedagogues and psychologists of several Montenegrin elementary schools, who contributed significantly to the program of the "Barbara Prammer" Democracy Workshops, both by participating in the workshops and by establishing the program among pupils, colleagues and parents.
The Chairperson of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture and Sports, Mr Radule Novović, emphasised in his opening remarks that we often hear that investing in the education system was the best investment for the future and that nothing so directly determined the future of a country, such as skills, knowledge and the values that young people have acquired and embraced over the course of education, which they then could incorporate into the development and progress thereof. While addressing the attendees, he recalled that representatives of the education system in Montenegro played an important role in the process of socialisation of children and young people, who represented the future drivers of social change, in contemporary Montenegrin society.
The Secretary General of the Parliament of Montenegro, Mr Aleksandar Jovićević, who addressed the attendees as well, stressed that the program of Democratic Workshops offered a modern and interactive approach, providing pupils with the opportunity, for the first time, to prepare a feature for newspapers, radio and video, which was one additional value of the program and the trademark of the workshops. Addressing the attendees, the Secretary General stressed that the success and further development of democratic workshops depended on the valuable support and suggestions of teachers and teaching staff, as their contribution to the implementation and promotion of this program has been immeasurable.
Assistant to the Secretary General, Ms Nataša Komnenić, thanked the school representatives as well for their contribution to the success of the program so far and emphasised that the meeting was a good opportunity to consider possibilities for further development of certain aspects of the educational program of the "Barbara Prammer" Democracy Workshops and, in particular, the role of the teaching staff within. The Head of the Education Centre, Ms Milica Nikolić Jokić, when discussing the statistics and participation in the program, reminded that the "Barbara Prammer" Democracy Workshops had started the eighth school year of the implementation, since October 2012, and that she felt proud to have been able to point out that the program so far gathered more than 30,000 participants in workshops, coming from 125 Montenegrin elementary schools and all Montenegrin municipalities, and that teachers who accompanied the children during the workshops, made a significant contribution to the program and largely enabled the program to be successful and recognised in the school community. There have been over 1,800 of teachers since the beginning of the program.
During the meeting, the teachers put the emphasis on examples of good practice that can be transferred from the classroom to the program, as well as examples of good practice that are applicable in the formal education system, and they praised the approach to working with children in workshops and offered concrete suggestions for a joint effort in improving the program.
The program of the "Barbara Pramer" Democratic Workshops is a civic education program for elementary school pupils, aged 8 to 15, which has been implemented in the Parliament of Montenegro since October 2012, and was created through the cooperation of the Austrian and Montenegrin Parliament.
