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Project Citizen
Project Citizen is a pilot program of democratic education promoting responsible citizen’s participation in local, regional and national public administration. Currently, this project covers elementary school students with ambition to cover high school students as well. By participating in this pilot project students are being actively involved in the process of public oversight and influence on public policy. Also, this project support and encourages civic participation of students, their parents, teachers as well as other members of community.
To enable realization of this program, Center for development of Serbia organized training of 192 teachers from 101 elementary schools from Serbia. The training was held in Vrnjacka Banja with participation of trainers from USA and Bosnia & Herzegovina.
During implementation of this program a class should identify and elaborate a problem of their community, then analyze alternative measures of public policy in regard to the identified problem, than propose their own solution to the problem and at the end suggest an action plan for the problem resolution. As a final result, students create a class portfolio which they present at the public hearings, thus demonstrating their understaning of the public policy. Culmination of the project are regional and national showcases where best portfolios are selected.
Students are involved in the process of collective team learning through the following steps:
- Identification of the public policy problem in the local community
- Gathering information about the problem
- Selection and elaboration of the public policy measure for tackling the problem
- Development of the action plan for the problem resolution.
Long term ambition of the project is to become a part of curriculum of the public elementary and secondary schools.
Project citizen is initially designed and developed by the Center for Civic Education from California USA. In Serbia this program is being implemented by four organizations–Civic initiatives, Belgrade Open School, Institute for Educational Research and Center for Development of Serbia with cooperation with the Serbian Education and Sport Ministry. |
