ECO NET in Bosnia-Herzegovina

In January 2004, ECO NET started at Module 0 in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The main focus of economic development in BiH is on the promotion of small and medium-sized companies. Practically-orientated business education and training therefore has an important role to play. The existing economic schools, which normally train business secretaries and business technicians, can however only partly fulfil this task at present and are mostly not adequately equipped to convey to the pupils the required knowledge in information technology, economics/business and foreign languages.

These facts have led to the following objectives being set for the country programme for BiH:

• Imparting basic knowledge in the fields of business management, information technology for business and teaching methods for training firms work.
• Introduction to training firms work and the establishment of training firms at six pilot schools in the school year 2004/2005 (Sarajevo, Tuzla, Livno, Bijeljina, Prijedor and Brcko).
• Equipping the offices which are to function as business management centres within the pilot schools.
• The creation of websites
• The participation in regional activities (e.g. international fairs) and
• creating a concept for the establishment of a training firms network in Bosnia-Herzegovina

The following parts of the programme were implemented by October 2005:

• Module 1.1 Subject teaching methods for Business Management I (May 2004)
• Module 1.2 Subject teaching methods for Business Management II (October 2004)
• Module 1.3 Data Processing I (November 2004)
• Module 1.4: Management 1a (June 2005)
• Module 2.1 Equipping the business centres at the six pilot schools (June, September 2004)
• Module 2.2 Founding and organisation of training firms (September 2004)
• Module 3.1: Networking (May 2005)
• Module 3.3 Data Processing II (April 2005)
• Module 3.6 Organisation of a trade fair (September 2005)
• Module 3.8: Participation in the international training firms' fair in Freistadt/Austria (March 2005)
• Participation in the international training firms' fair in Timisoara (May 2004)

Until the end of the project, additional further training seminars are to follow, as well as activities to establish the training firms in the relevant curricula and the organisation of a national training firms' fair.

The first training firms in Bosnia-Herzegovina were founded and developed at the pilot schools at the beginning of the school year 2004/05. Since November 2004, the first national and international business activities have been initiated and concluded.

The implementation of the project targets and contents will take place in cooperation with the relevant education authorities, headteachers and teachers.

ECO NET will be implemented in Bosnia-Herzegovina from January 2004 to December 2005 (24 months) with the support of the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the OSF BiH (Soros Foundation).