Head of Operations, Delegation of the EU to Bosnia and Herzegovina Holger Schroeder said that BiH authorities take firm steps in order to ensure the equal access to education; linguistic and cultural diversity in education within wider education reform
He reminds that BiH and the EU have committed themselves under the Stabilization Association Agreement (SAA) to cooperate with the aim of raising the level of general education, vocational education and training in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
”Practices of segregation or discrimination in education are indeed incompatible with efforts to build a knowledge society and foster competitiveness. They have a negative economic impact as the talents of thousands of young people risk to be locked up and remain unused.
And insofar as they are a violation of human rights, they are also not compatible with the EU aspirations of the country.”
He added that some progress has been achieved in BiH.
”To cite just one example, thirty-eight municipalities from all over the country are striving to become more inclusive by implementing the so called Index for inclusion, a self assessment tool that allows schools to develop themselves in an inclusive manner, with the support of their local communities” ,stated Schroeder.
He said that the IPA 2013 programme is expected to provide further support to promote inclusiveness in schools over the country, including investments for those school that try to overcome discrimination or segregation.
Under the future Instrument for Pre Accession, human resource development will be one of the priorities for the period 2014 to 2020.
”Whether it concerns inclusiveness or support to the modernisation of education, the EU will thus remain committed to cooperate with Bosnia and Herzegovina and to maintain and further increase support to education and training in BiH under the Instrument for Pre-Accession and the EU Community programmes on education and training’’,said Schroeder
