Start date: June 28, 2004
End date: May 31, 2014
Project budget (Life of Project): $ 4,530,760
Implementer: Foundation Open Society - Macedonia (FOS-M)
Objectives
Help Roma students remain in the school system and improve their performance and attendance, by means of positive interventions from pre-school through university.
Components
Roma Education Centers: Four informal centers in targeted Roma settlements in Skopje (1), Kumanovo (2) and Prilep (1) assist up to 250 preschool children annually to prepare for regular school. They provide after-school tutoring and homework support for 900 students in 1st through 8th grade, and work with parents to raise their awareness about the importance of education.
Achievements/Impact
Over 90% of assisted preschool children have successfully enrolled in first grade and over 94% of participating primary school children completed their grades and progressed to the next one. Project beneficiaries continue to show higher GPAs. Of the 262 secondary school students who received four years of scholarship and mentoring assistance between 2004 and 2008, 200 successfully completed secondary education. In addition, 98 out of 102 secondary school students from the second scholarship and mentoring intervention group (from 2008/09 to 2009/10) completed secondary education, and over 77% of Roma university scholarship recipients progressed to their next level.
Other academic support: In the period 2004-2010, the project provided scholarship and mentoring assistance to a total of 364 secondary school students and 135 university students. Additionally, teacher training was provided to 300 teachers from eight project primary schools in intercultural education and education for social justice, dealing with diversity, interactive teaching methods, and school improvement.
Sustainability/Legacy
The REP has helped 298 Roma secondary students to complete studies. This success and advocacy led the Ministry of Education and Science to take over the REP model of scholarships/mentorships for high school students and continued to implement the project. 51 scholarship and other academic support recipients have graduated from university since 2004 and another 15 are expected to graduate by the end of 2011. Most of them are already employed in public administration, schools, NGOs and international organizations, and therefore are in a position to advocate for Roma inclusion and to participate in making decisions relevant to Roma community and the country as a whole.
In addition, the project is building sustainability by ensuring that teachers are well equipped with new child-centered teaching methods and more responsive to needs, teachers appreciate cultural differences and deal better with prejudice, local curricula are more responsive to cultural diversity, and parents know that education is the only way out of poverty.
Contact Information
Contact at USAID:
Deputy Education Office Director: Lela Jakovlevska, AOTR ljakovlevska@usaid.gov
Chief of Party: Spomenka Lazarevska slazare@soros.org.mk
Website: www.soros.org.mk