at the Secondary School Petrinja, Petrinja, 29 June, 2010

Education and Teacher Training Agency of Croatia, Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies, Zagreb, and the Higher Secondary School Petrinja, Petrinja, with the financial support from the Stavanger University, Stavanger (Norway) organized the sixth Seminarf or the Croatian primary and secondary school teachers from the Sisak-Moslavina county, with an aim of dissemination of good practice of pedagogical work in the field of migration, intercultural education and democratic citizenship (previous five seminars, held between 2003. and 2008., were directly connected to the activities within two Comenius projects: a) Migration and Intercultural Relations – Challenge for the European Schools Today/2002-2005/; b) LearningMigration /2005-2008/ ).

Seminar in Petrinja attended 54 persons:  44 teachers representing eight secondary  and nine primary schools of the County, members from the Interculture Center, Zagreb,members from the Association IKS ( Information, Culture, Coexistence), Petrinja, plus five lecturers. Seminar opened Ante Balen, headmaster of the Petrinja school, followed by Nevenka Loncaric-Jelacic, senior adviser at the Education and Teacher Training Agency and dr. Ruzica Cicak-Chand, coordinator of the two Comenius projects in Croatia.

Margareta Gregurovic, scientific assistant, from the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies introduced Institute's research areas and research activities in the last two decades, with a focus on some of the latest projects' findings. Cicak-Chand reported on the participation of Croatia (Institute for Migration, Teacher Training Agency and the schools) in the Comenius  projects, which was possible through the bilateral collaboration with Norway and its financial support (University of Stavanger and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway), Further on dr. Cicak-Chand spoke on the activity of the Croatian partner-schools and, in particular, on the importance of dissemination seminars, including the present one. Zvonimir Vidusin, representative of the Agency for Mobility and EU Programme, gave a presentation of the range of EU programmes for the life-long learning and the possibilities for schools and teachers to join programmes and projects. Loncaric-Jelacic spoke on the importance of democratic and civic education in the Croatian educational system, while Vinko Zidaric, from the Interculture Center, talked about Interculturalism, its genesis, present state and perspective.

In the afternoon part of the seminar, Dragana Jurcevic-Vuksic and Indira Vujicic, both teachers from the Petrinja Secondary school, presented to the participants conferences' activities in Sofia (2007) and Ramnicu Valcea (Romania, 2008). This was followed by the presentation of the MILES seminar in Berlin (2009) by Jurcevic-Vuksic. Seminar's programme concluded with the presentation of the Petrinja's two school projects: Migration Research through different parts of the world and Migration story of our Region, which also involved pupils' presentation and a workshop. In discussion, at the end of the seminar, teachers expressed interest for the continuity of participation in project(s) concerned with migration and intercultural education themes.