I am glad to be here this afternoon. As I mentioned to the Primary Education Quality Board earlier today, Dr. Azimov has told me a lot about your work. I want to personally congratulate you, and thank you for your success in developing a harmonized multi-ethnic curriculum for the secondary schools in Brcko District.
I can appreciate that the process of preparing such a curriculum is more complex at the level of secondary schools. The idea of studying together with children from other national groups may, as well, be harder for them to accept. More of the high school students were more directly affected by the tragedies of the war. I hope you will be able to convince them that the goal of reintegrating Brcko’s schools is very clearly to try to prevent another disastrous war. They will surely know something of the price that was paid by the last one. I know that you, as well as I, have faith in the children’s basic humanity, and that if they study together they will learn to respect each other.
Clearly, the schools in Brcko District need more than just a new curriculum. I am therefore pleased to announce that I haved to announce that I have approved the purchase of 40 computers, and 10 sets of teaching aids and classroom equipment for the exact sciences, out of funds provided by the U.S. Government. The requests for bids have already gone out to suppliers. Our goal is to complete the purchase in time for you to use this new equipment in the fall classes. Like you, we want to see the children succeed in the modern world, and to do that they must have a sound knowledge of science and of information technology. The computers and science equipment are surely not all you need, but it is a step forward.
We now have the new Brcko Teacher’s Center provided by the World Bank, the teachers’ training sponsored by the Council of Europe, and Civitas projects for civic education. Scholarships for 20 high school students, to spend half a year in Arizona, were just announced yesterday. If your harmonized curriculum is successful, as I am sure it will be, I believe we will find further support in the years ahead.
Taken together, all these measures are more than just a few steps forward. Education in Brcko District is making a huge leap forward. I hope you will soon be very proud to be a part of it. Certainly I am!