Ethnic Groups and Social Inclusion in Education and Training in the Western

Balkan countries Third Regional Experts Meeting

13-14 November 2008, Turin

2

Challenges Implementation/operationalisation is sometimes hampered

by a too many uncoordinated strategic documents

Inadequate planning - annual or multi-annual planning of the ministries is not always based on strategic priorities

Financing - very often the planned policies are not supported by the adequate national and external financing

Implementation coordination among the different institutions/ international and national development partners is not always easy

3

Challenges

Monitoring & Evaluation – it is necessary to develop suitable Monitoring Evaluation mechanism

Policy planning process does not always include a Monitoring and Evaluation mechanism, hence there is not enough fine-tuning of the future policies

Some policy impact assessment and evaluation is done but not enough to be a crucial input to policy frameworks and effective/efficient/sustainable implementation

There is a need for standardisation and harmonisation of the national indicators with those recommended by international organisations (OECD, EU Common Quality Assurance Framework)

4

Challenges

Not enough integration of the good “pilots” into the national systemic solutions

Not enough adequately enhanced capacities of the national institutions/partners/communicities

Need for better use of IPA programming

5

Comments/thoughts for discussions

No shortage of new ideas and policy formulation, implementation, tools, instruments, measures and approaches

Evaluation and review to support policy maintenance, succession or termination

Persistent flaws in mainstreaming and large-scale delivery

Transnational cooperation with a special focus on peer learning action to reduce the “policy and implementation gap”

6

Need for regional cooperation : Addressing regional challenges helps to de-politicise highly

political national issue Provides greater opportunity to pool and expand strategic

knowledge Enables capacity development through learning from peers

who have overcome the same challenges Contributes to successful lobbying and accessing financial

resources Regional networks can be an efficient forum of bringing

together national/ regional/EU and other international learning in one place.

7

IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER: Education and training of vulnerable ethnic groups is the best

foundation for social integration and the best guarantee possible against exclusion, unemployment and discrimination

It is crucially important to design and implement policies that guarantee an optimal integration and employment

BUT: Education and training is one of the many sectors There is no obvious and straightforward rule for finance ministry and

development partners on how to allocate spending Discussion of this workshop should be guided by the overall realities of

the national context within the framework of EU integration.