Modern and necessary – these words can describe the Concept for Intercultural Education, developed by the Nansen Dialogue Centre Skopje (NDC) at the request of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Republic of North Macedonia (MES) in 2015. The Concept is accepted by the MES as an official document and is available on the website of the Ministry.
The need for such a concept in education has arisen not only because of the multicultural nature of our society, but as a need of every modern society that is changing due to global migrations, as well as the multilingual and multicultural tradition nurtured in many European and world democracies.
Additionally, Macedonian society is facing another challenge – a tendency for monoethnic schools. Only 19 percent of primary schools in North Macedonia have instructions in 2 languages, and in slightly less than 5 percent – in 3 languages. Some schools are called multiethnic but, in fact, instructions are held in different facilities, separated branch and central schools that are monolingual, with students from different ethnic communities that are rarely mixed. This creates prejudices and stereotypes among students that contribute even more to the division.
Intercultural education is characterized by community, solidarity, respect, tolerance, helping, trust and other universal human values.
The NDC’s Concept for Intercultural Education is a strategic and development paper with a mission to promote the constitutional and legal right to equal education for all, to nurture one’s own ethnic and cultural identity, as well as to accept and respect diversity. This would be achieved through activities and contents that promote interculturalism in the educational process.
Basic values of intercultural education are established in international documents since the middle of the last century and contain guidelines for the development of education in Europe and beyond.
The content of the Concept for Intercultural Education is the basis for building educational policies that will enable equal involvement of members from different ethnic communities in upbringing and educational activity.
The principles of this 2015 Concept are applied in the upbringing and educational process in primary and secondary schools in North Macedonia and are already yielding positive outcomes in some schools.
To view and download the Concept for Intercultural education please click on the following links:
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