The global pandemic has caused serious consequences for all aspects of life in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially education, and hundreds of thousands of students have been forced to attend online classes.
Save the Children, with the support of USAID, has joined forces with the Ministries of Education of Sarajevo Canton, Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and Republika Srpska to respond to the demands of the education system caused by the coronavirus pandemic for unhindered online teaching in these parts of our country.
“Within the second component of the “Tabla/Board” project, which the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republika Srpska is implementing in cooperation with the international organization “Save The Children”, 120 laptops were delivered to 41 primary schools in March and 744 tablets will be delivered during August. The laptops delivered within the project are intended for teachers to use during distance learning, access to digital textbooks and electronic pedagogical documentation, while tablets are intended for students from families in difficult financial situations, as well as for distance learning.
In general, the implementation of this and similar projects, and in parallel with the education reform being implemented in the Republika Srpska, contributes to better education with better learning outcomes. Also, in schools, conditions are created for the implementation of teaching and extracurricular activities in a modern, interesting and efficient way in accordance with European and world trends.” – Igor Tomić, Expert Advisor for the Development of Secondary Education and Upbringing, Republika Srpska.
Based on the special needs of educators of selected schools in the Sarajevo Canton, Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and in the Republika Srpska, a total of 250 laptops were donated to schools in BiH. The laptops delivered as part of the “Tabla” general education project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Save the Children, are intended for teachers to use during distance learning, to access digital textbooks and electronic pedagogical documentation.
“This is very significant for our primary school along with the school management, the principal who in cooperation with Save the Children received the donation. Teachers have the opportunity to use the latest technology in online teaching. The donation is very valuable because the laptops and all the modern equipment of the last generation is very quick, so we don’t have that problem when we have classes and our equipment is too slow and unresponsive. So, we will use it during classes which we organize through meetings, because we use the Office 365 platform. The characteristics of the laptop are top notch, we have a really good hard disk that is very fast when loading data, then the RAM memory and processors are excellent. The quality of the laptop is excellent. What is very important in this time of the pandemic is to have the best possible communication with students. ” – Esad Avdić, mathematics teacher, Elementary School “Grbavica 1” Sarajevo Canton.
These activities will be continued in the coming period in order to help students and teachers in BiH to overcome this difficult period.
In August 2021, a donation of about 1,500 tablets is planned for students of Sarajevo Canton, Herzegovina-Neretva Canton and Republika Srpska. The tablets will be intended for students in difficult financial situation for online education.
