North Macedonia: Three-day workshop Initiation and assessment of democratic school climate

It is with great pleasure that we regularly report on democracy activities of our colleagues in this newsletter. We received information about a very interesting workshop in Skopje, Northern Macedonia, in which our two colleagues Natalija Aceska and Ivanka Mijikj (both Advisors at the Bureau for Development of Education) participated, and in the course of which the two spoke about the website www.living-democracy.com. This report is a good example of how current and thematic events can be used to promote the website.

The three-day workshop entitled Initiation and assessment of democratic school climate was held in person in Skopje in September 2021. It was organised by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Macedonian Civic Education Centre. About 60 advisors from the Bureau for Development of Education and vocational education and training centres participated. The training was conducted by the educational experts Satu Honkala and Kristina Kaihari from the Finnish National Agency for Education. At one of the sessions, Natalija Aceskaand Ivanka Mijikj told the participants about www.living-democracy.com and were convinced that they reacted very positively to the resource. It seems they found the website useful as a source of materials and activities for developing and strengthening democratic education, democratic culture in the schools and the democratic competences of students, teachers, school staff, parents, advisors and educational experts, etc. The idea for dissemination of the website concept to primary and secondary school teachers through professional advisory work was accepted very positively. The participants agreed that the materials are also very useful for integrating democratic education into the teaching process, as well as for strengthening democratic culture in schools. Moreover, they can be used as one of the approaches for the initiation and assessment of a democratic school climate. The website focuses specifically on issues relating to the design of the school as a living space in its section for principals, and thus naturally supports all questions relating to the topic of the workshop. Here is the link: https://www.living-democracy.com/principals/

This example from North Macedonia shows that, despite the specific circumstances caused by the pandemic, the Living Democracy Campaign in North Macedonia is being implemented very successfully among different target groups and a large number of teachers, principals, students, educational advisors, parents, etc. were involved in campaign activities.