Another four centers for specialist training of teachers - extension of project of Ministry of Education and Government of Switzerland

Four new regional centers for professional development of teaching staff - in Smederevo, Kruševac, Kikinda and Šabac - will be opened within the next three to six months. The contracts for opening new centers were signed yesterday (September 9, 2009) in the Government of Serbia by the representatives of aforementioned local self-governments and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

As it was pointed out at the press conference, Swiss Government financed two thirds of costs of refurbishment of facilities where future regional centers will be situated, while the rest of the money will be provided by local self-governments.

The Minister of Education, Žarko Obradović, reminded that "Regional Center for Professional Development of Teaching Staff" project had been started in 2002, and that such centers had already been founded in Užice and Čačak. He said that over 40 municipalities and cities had applied for founding regional centers, and that the advantage had been given to local self-governments with the best projects.

The State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Tinda Kovač-Cerović, explained that the centers would be used for realization of accredited seminars for specialist training of teachers and seminars approved by the Minister of Education, and that they could even be profiled for the programmes from certain domains in the future. According to her words, these institutions will employ experts from the territory of municipalities they are situated in.

Commenting on the claims of educational workers that local self-governments are not setting aside the money for specialist training of teachers on regular basis, Ms. Kovač-Cerović said that the founding of regional centers was "important step in that direction, which directly shows how much the municipalities are interested in having competent teachers in their schools".