Together for every student’s success: a national meeting brought together principals, teachers, students, university professors, representatives of the Ministry of Education and social partners.

For three days, from July 10 to 12, 2023, the Borovets complex became the scene of many parallel events organized by the Amalipe Center and united by the common idea that every student can succeed, when he finds a supportive environment, when he finds someone to inspire him when he sees himself in the learning process. For this to happen, it is necessary to unite the efforts of principals, teachers, students, university professors, as well as institutions and social partners, in the form of the Ministry of Education, trade unions and professional employers’ organizations.

• Annual Meeting of the Professional Principal Community for Intercultural Education “Every Student Will be a winner”. On July 10th and 11th at the Samokov Hotel, Borovets complex, the Professional Director’s Community for Intercultural Education held its annual meeting. It was attended by more than 140 directors from the “Every student will be a winner” Network, administered by the Amalipe Center with the support of the Trust for a Social Alternative.

The purpose of the meeting was to share both successes and challenges and to look for solutions together, to look back at what the Network has been through, what it has achieved, but also forward, with a vision of how it should develop, in order to meet the new challenges.

The second day was aimed at discussing pressing problems and issues related to current political developments in education, the vision of the new leadership of the Ministry of Education for inclusive education, educational desegregation, educational integration, national programs and the future of educational mediators. In a frank conversation, these topics were discussed with Dr. Yanka Takeva, Natalia Mihalevska, head of Prof. Tsokov’s office, Dima Kotseva and Kamen Yordanov (Directorate of Finance), Vladimir Stanchev and Ivan Ivanov (Directorate of Project Management and Implementation), Lalo Kamenov (TSOIDUEM).

• Eleventh National Conference on “Student Leaders: Turning Ideas into Action”. In the period 11-12 July in the city of Borovets Center “Amalipe” organized and held the 11th National Pedagogical Conference under the motto “Students leaders – turn ideas into actions”, which made it possible to popularize successful applied-practical models of student self-governance. Official guests at the event were Nataliya Mihailevska – Head of the Political Office of the Minister of Education, PhD. Yanka Takeva – President of the Union of Bulgarian Teachers and Rositsa Ivanova – Head of the Regional Department of Education – Sofia region.

The forum was held in three thematic directions: “Interculturality in the educational system of the Republic of Bulgaria”, “Active policies for child and youth participation. Active forms of empowerment’ and ‘Good practices for school and youth activities: initiatives, campaigns, trainings’. Moderators were educational experts Yonka Danova and Silvia Stancheva.

• Student-leaders in action: How ideas become reality, told the youth during the 11th pedagogical conference of Amalipe Center.

Who better than the student leaders themselves could tell and present how their ideas become reality and their efforts become successes? That is why this year we have invited several active youth groups to participate equally with the adult professionals in the Conference and to present their activities during the past school year. How do young people reach decisions and organize themselves? How student self-government works, what activities students are involved in and how youth participation is stimulated – we understood this through the eyes of active students, part of the student parliaments, as well as young people, part of the civic groups under the “Intercultural Academy for Civic Participation and Tolerance” project , funded by the US Embassy in Bulgaria.

• Training of teachers-teachers/mentors under the project “Together for the success of every student”

The school year is over, but not the teacher trainings!

From July 10 to 11, the training of pedagogical specialists from the schools included in the project BG05M2OP001-3.017-0037-C01 “Together for the success of every student: increasing the capacity of pedagogical specialists to work in a multicultural environment” was implemented. The training is part of activity 3. Conducting short-term trainings for teachers, pedagogical specialists, directors and educational mediators from schools to work in a multicultural educational environment, which do not end with the awarding of qualification credits.

The conducted training aims to prepare teacher-mentors/mentors who will undergo a cycle of thematic modules for trainers, applying the complex support for conducting the intra-school qualification and other trainings.

• Workshop between university teachers of disciplines in the field of intercultural education

On July 11 and 12, 2023, in parallel with the annual conference on intercultural education of the directors of schools and kindergartens included in the Amalipe Center network, a first-of-its-kind working meeting was held between university professors in disciplines related to intercultural education. The lecturers took part in a general meeting to open the conference and listened to the plenary reports of Prof. Dr. Plamen Makariev and Associate Professor Dr. Yosif Nunev, as well as in its final part, where they presented their solutions. The rest of the time they worked independently.

During the working meeting, the university professors debated the following topics:

• Why do we need the study of disciplines related to intercultural education in universities so much?
• Identification of objective and subjective obstacles in the teaching of disciplines related to intercultural education, etc.