Maghnouj S. - OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Serbia

This review was funded by UNICEF and developed in close co-operation with UNICEFs Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia and UNICEFs Serbia Country Office whose staff provided valuable guidance and support. In particular, the review team would like to thank Parmosivea Soobrayan, Regional Education Advisor for Europe and Central Asia, for his co-operation and commitment to the partnership between the OECD and UNICEF. The review team would like to convey its sincere appreciation to the UNICEF Serbia Country Office, led by Ms Regina De Dominicis, Representative. We would also like to thank Severine Leonardi, Deputy Representative and the UNICEF Serbia education team, notably Tanja Rankovi, Education Specialist, and Dejan Stankovi, Education Officer, for their guidance, support and insights.

The review team would further like to thank the Government of Serbia, under the leadership of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, for its support and contributions to the review. The review has strongly benefitted from the encouragement and support of Duan Kiovi, State Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, and Vesna Nedeljkovi, former Assistant Minister for Pre-school and Primary Education who also chaired the Steering Committee.

We are very grateful to the officials and education experts from the ministry and beyond, who graciously shared their insights and knowledge with us, in particular the members of the Steering Committee: Gordana Kosanovi, Special Advisor to the Minister; Slavica Jai, Head of Sector for Pre-school and Primary Education; Gordana Cvetkovi, Head of the Group for Minorities Education, Social Inclusion and Prevention of Violence and Discrimination; Ljiljana Marolt, Head of the Group for Pre-school Education; Dragan Marini, Coordinator for Development of Secondary Education and Adult Education; Aleksandar Paji, Special Advisor for Secondary Education and Adult Education; Zlatko Gruanovi, Director of the Institute for Improvement of Education; Gordana apri, Deputy Director of the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation; Aleksandar Baucal, Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade.

We sincerely thank all the participants in the review visits, including officials from the ministry and its technical agencies the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation (IEQE) and the Institute for Improvement of Education (IIE). We would also like to extend our gratitude to other national bodies, such as the National Education Council (NEC), to civil society organisations, as well as to international bodies including the European Union Delegation and the World Bank. We are grateful to the researchers, non-governmental organisations, school leaders, teachers, teacher unions, parents and students who kindly gave their time to share their views, experience and knowledge with us. We would especially like to thank the schools in Belgrade and Novi Sad for welcoming us so warmly during our review visits.