In Sarajevo, from September 12 -15, 2022, there will be a meeting of representatives of the IEA, the International Association for the Evaluation of Student Achievements, and the Dinarik Group for the TIMSS survey of the Dinaric region, which stretches from Slovenia through Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo.
At the meeting of the Dinarik Group, organized by the IEA, the host will be the Agency for Pre-Primary, Primary and Secondary Education on behalf of Bosnia and Herzegovina, to welcome and host the guests from Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo as well as representatives of the IEA, among them the director of the IEA, Amsterdam, Ms. Andrea Netten.
The purpose of the regional meeting is to strengthen international cooperation within the Dinarik Group in the field of international surveys conducted by the IEA.
In February 2018, the European Commission presented a new Western Balkans Strategy, emphasizing the European future of the region as a geostrategic investment in a stable, strong, and united Europe based on shared values. The IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) 2019 marked a milestone in the participation of the Western Balkans region. For the first time, the entire region participated in the same cycle of TIMSS survey, promoting peer learning. This joint association supports the capacity of the countries of the Dinaric region to learn from each other by identifying similarities and differences between their neighboring education systems. Furthermore, it gathers useful regional data that can support education authorities to develop appropriate measures to address the most urgent educational needs.
The Regional Report “Dinaric perspectives on TIMSS 2019 – Teaching and Learning Mathematics and Science in South-Eastern Europe” was created in English with the cooperation of institutions that conduct the TIMSS survey within the Dinaric region. The publication “Dinaric perspectives on TIMSS 2019” was created under the auspices of the IEA and the European Commission, and the main editors are Barbara Japelj Pavešić (Educational Research Institute Ljubljana, Slovenia), Paulína Koršˇnáková (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and Sabine Meinck (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Hamburg, Germany). At the initiative of institutions from the region, the report was translated into the regional languages (Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Montenegrin) to become more accessible to interested parties in the educational system of the Dinaric region. Soon the report will be available in electronic form in those regional languages.
We believe the meeting will serve as a basis for sharing the experiences of all regional stakeholders, including teachers, school leaders, researchers and decision makers, and will support and improve student achievement and engagement in mathematics and science.
