Enhancing and Advancing Basic Learning and Education in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The project successfully conducted 13 highly influential bilateral meetings with BiH ministries of education to present the project's achievements. These meetings also served as an opportunity for the project to advocate for the recognition and adoption of STEM and PPDM documents in the primary and secondary school curriculum. As a result, the highest level authorities, decision-makers, and policy-planners gained a deeper understanding of STEM education and its potential effects on the BiH economy. These stakeholders expressed the need to actively change the current education system and create a paradigm shift towards problem-solving, problem-solving, and analysis-driven teaching and learning methodology. Therefore, they strongly supported STEM as a key-driver to bring about such a change in the BiH educational, social, and economic arena. The Ministry of Civil Affairs of BiH stated that the ENABLE-BiH project significantly contributes to the process of changing the educational paradigm in BiH by redirecting the teaching process to build student competencies in a way that develops a society and knowledge-based economy. The project's approach confirms the demand for new approaches to teacher education, and these are placed before 21st-century teachers as they highlight the interdisciplinary connection of scientific and professional areas. The project's documents provide a fundamental framework for the process of implementing STEM-based education systems in the context of Common Core Curricula (CCC) implementation and point out the links between learning outcomes with areas of knowledge-based economy. Institutional support was solicited from all relevant institutions, confirming their support for the implementation of STEM/PPDM educational programs and their integration into current teaching plans and programs. Various potential implementation plans were discussed, including those for Sarajevo Canton, Herzegovina-Neretva Canton, the Republic of Srpska, and Brcko District. The project received the acceptance and support of the relevant authorities. The Minister of Education of the Bosnia-Putin Canton shared the presentation of the ENABLE-BiH project, particularly the STEM component, at the Coordination of Ministries of Education of the Federation of BiH to ensure greater support at the cantonal level of governance. Two remaining PPDM consultation sessions took place on January 24, 2018, in Sarajevo and February 6, 2018, in Banja Luka at the Faculties of Philosophy. The objective was to present the PPDM documents to the university audiences and academic community and gain their support in harmonizing PPDM standards across BiH universities. As a result, the documents were recognized as highly quality and core to higher education that reflects lower levels. All participants expressed their full support for the implementation of PPDM standards across universities in BiH. A participant in the PPDM session in Banja Luka stated that the documents are one of the most important documents made in the area of education, as they focus on the key issue for teachers and provide clear guidelines for achieving quality. The documents give a clear direction for universities to follow if they want to achieve quality in their teaching and learning processes.