Social Inclusion is not present in Bosnia & Herzegovina?!
As many organisations Association of Secondary School Students in Bosnia and Herzegovina (ASuBiH) took part in OBESSU’s campaign “Education we have a problem”. On the 17th November 2013, we promoted the social inclusion campaign with stickers and posters.
In our country we usually do not have problems with ranking in education and inclusion because of nationality or so. Bosnia & Herzegovina is a country divided into three parts: Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Srpska and Brčko District. However in all these parts, all nationalities should have equal rights. But that is not always the case, as we have had many cases were students have been discriminated. In school there are classes with children from Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian nationalities and national minorities. However it is planned that we all study and spend time together without showing differences or disrespect to someone, and that is how it is most of the time.
But this time, when the whole world is in crisis, our country has many problems with the cost of education. It is hard to be a successful student in secondary school if you do not have all books for classes. You must buy those books yourself because the secondary education is not an obligation in our country and if you want to get education you must finance this yourself. Of course there are many NGOs that collect money and books for those who need the help the most and help them. When we talk about school fees, this is obligation to be paid in many schools in Bosnia & Herzegovina. With the stickers of the EWHAP campaign we tried to mark some things which we need to buy on our own and a few things we get from schools and are paid from the country’s budget.
It is sad that we give so much to this education and we get so little in return. Our educational system itself is not that bad in general, but a lot of rules are being overlooked due to the lack of funds and that drastically reduces the quality of the education and we don’t know if it is going to be better anytime soon. We can just hope and give our best to change it, just as we were doing it.
Written by ASuBiH
