ECO NET in Macedonia

ECO NET III in Macedonia focuses on the following items: the strengthening of the services provided by the Macedonian Service Centre for training firms; in-service training for the team of training firm teachers at the pilot schools, particularly in the field of the use of foreign languages and the internet in the context of training firms work; strengthening the training firms' network by organising a national training firms' fair including the training firms of the US Aid/SEA Project; participation in training firms' fairs in 2005 and 2006; the selection and training of facilitators as well as the adaptation of curricular materials (bilingual: Macedonian and Albanian) for the training firm managers (particularly a training firms' manual) by using materials and experience from Bulgaria and Romania.

The ECO NET pilot schools are located in Veles (Jovce Teslickov) and in Skopje (Arseni Jovkov and Vasil Antevski Dren). On the basis of an enquiry made by the Macedonian Ministry of Education, KulturKontakt Austria is financing a three-module training course for economics/business teachers at the six remaining Economics Schools in Macedonia which have until now not established training firms either in the ECO NET project or in the American SEA project. On the part of the Macedonian Ministry of Education, there is great interest in disseminating the training firms method. The possibility of implementing the training firms method in different types of schools is also being considered.