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Description
In the midst of great changes in the educational system following the outbreak of COVID-19, the voices of students are largely ignored. This caused a disruption of democratic processes in schools, exacerbated the well-being of students and the successful implementation of control measures. This project aims to strenghten advocacy among CSOs and student councils as the representative body of students in monitoring and managing education policies in times of the pandemic, as well as to assert the importance of student councils in issues related to students'' rights and obligations. This will be achieved through advocating to the relevant authorities at the national and local levels and through a research on the involvement of students in decision-making processes regarding issues related to the them throughout Croatia. Advocacy activities will include monitoring the implementation of relevant provisions of the Primary and Secondary School Education Act and asserting their importance. Apart from providing insight into student participation during COVID-19 pandemic, data collected through the research will be used to form Recommendations for involving student councils in decision-making related to student issues in situations of crises. The project is aimed primarily at raising awareness among the relevant authorities and mobilizing them to support the work of student councils in conditions related to COVID-19. Furthermore, the project will involve educational staff from Croatian schools and student councils representatives, whose opinions and proposals are intended to be collected through research. Students will participate in writing the Recommendations, which will be publicly available for use to educational institutions, other CSOs, and the general public. The applicant and the partners will be involved in all project activities in their regions. The applicant will coordinate the process and will be in charge of project administration.
Summary of project results
The research included over 300 institutions from all over Croatia, which provided a good insight into the work of student councils in 2020.
Successful cooperation in partnership with 5 associations from Croatia created a network of intrinsically motivated experts from civil society who expressed their intention to cooperate in the field of participation of children and youth, more precisely student councils.
The results of the research are a good basis for further work in the area in any corner of Croatia, and the Recommendations are material that partners will propose as material in their further work with schools and institutions.
According to the research reviewer, this is one of the few if not the only research of student council work in recent history and as such is a valuable source of information and insight into the work in the field, and youth participation in general.
The guidelines obtained from the research, as well as the cooperation of young people contained in the Recommendations provide a good basis for further work of holders and partners in several areas: development of quality guidelines for student councils, advocacy for raising the quality of student councils at the national level. work of the student council among all stakeholders ... The recommendations were recognized by the Ministry of Science and Education as valuable and will be presented to the principals at the meeting in order to raise the quality of the work of the student council. We consider this to be the greatest success in the advocacy process, to which the quality of the Recommendations has certainly contributed. The Association "Delta" and the Info Zone are in negotiations about further action on the dissemination of results, as well as fundraising for the implementation of activities that would turn the given instructions into practice, in cooperation with young people.