Sofia, January 14-15 2017
More than 80 teachers, school principals, representatives of NGOs and government institutions gathered to share experience, knowledge and good practices at the Bulgarian Red Cross Building in Sofia on Jan 14 and 15 as part of the Fifth annual national conference on global education, organized by the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID).
The participant heard welcoming addresses from Yurii Shterk, Director of the UN and development cooperation at the MFA, Mihail Okoliiski, representative of WHO in Bulgaria, Kosta Kostov, chief expert at the at the “Qualification and career development” at the MoE and also chairman of the working group that developed the Governmental Educational Standard on civic, intercultural, health and ecological education, and Ventzislav Kirkov, Chairman of the Board of BPID and Program Manager at BFPA.
The new School and pre-school education Law defines the main goals, related to the principles of global education, such as: developing the capacity to apply the principles of sustainable development; developing the capacity of understanding and applying the principles of democracy and rule of law, human rights and freedoms and active and responsible citizen participation; tolerance and respect towards the ethnic, national, cultural, lingual and religious identity of every citizen; acquiring the capacity for understanding the global processes, tendencies and their mutual correlations. The Government Educational Standard on civic, intercultural, health and ecological education sets the framework for achieving these goals.
The conference set two main tasks – to present the Government Educational Standard on civic, intercultural, health and ecological education and position it in the school curriculum and also to be a good setting for meeting and exchange of experience and practices between teachers from all over the country who aim to build social and civic skills in their students so they can meet the challenges of the global world not only professionally but also as citizens. The second day of the event was dedicated to presenting innovative and effective teaching methods for topics and concepts on a global scale within the curriculum. There were workshops for teachers which offered creative ideas and which helped in developing practical skills. The workshop “Interactive tchniques in the field of health education” lead by Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova, Executive Director of BFPA, attracted a great deal of interest.
