The largest event for sharing positive examples in education, “Good Practices in Focus”, organized by the “Together in Class” foundation and the educational platform prepodavame.bg , took place on 20.04.2024 in the grand hotel “Astoria” in . Sofia. Nearly 600 teachers, principals, educational experts and representatives of the Ministry of Education and Science and regional administrations of education spent the Saturday day sharing experiences with colleagues from all over the country. The intensive program included presentations by impressive guest speakers who came especially for the event, numerous workshops and a panel discussion on the topic of supporting young teachers, and during the breaks the guests had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the products and services of various organizations working in the field of education.
The event was taken as an opportunity to wrap up the NEST project, in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Trade Union of Bulgaria. In addition to Bulgaria, four other countries from the European Union participated in the project – Austria, Belgium, Romania and Spain (all NEST Steering Committee partners). Within three years, over 50 experts from the regional administrations of education in Bulgaria were trained how to most effectively support newly appointed teachers and worked in the field with over 350 young pedagogical specialists. Dr. Neli Koleva, Head of “Strategic Partnerships” at “Together in an Hour”, moderated an expert panel that presented the learnings from NEST to the guests of the event. The hall was also attended by representatives of the other countries where the project took place, as well as the independent evaluator of the results of NEST – the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.
The event “Good practices in focus” is traditionally also the forum where the best teaching practices are awarded, which participate in the annual prepodavame.bg competition of the same name. In 2024, the theme of the competition was project-based learning. More than 170 teachers from across the country participated in the competition with practice from their classroom. A twelve-member jury of journalists, educational experts and members of the wider educational community distinguished and awarded four practices, there were also three awards from the audience, as well as selected projects from the sponsors of the event.
One of the most positive aspects of “Focus Good Practices” is that it gathers in one place people from all levels of the system: teachers, experts from the Ministry of Education and Culture, directors and representatives of the business and non-governmental sector, who have contact with education and gives them the opportunity to talk and exchange ideas. Mrs. Slavka Shtereva, director of the “Lyuben Karavelov” University in Plovdiv, said that she feels great recognition for the organizers of the forum and the competition, at which she was a jury this year. “This is the moment when every Bulgarian teacher, who has good implemented ideas, also has the confidence that they will be evaluated fairly, and he will be able to “set his clock”. The fact that there were 170 practices submitted shows that in Bulgaria we have innovative teachers. And the practices themselves were better than each other and seriously hampered the work of the jury. That is why we proposed to award 4 and not 3 as was the original idea. I am optimistic that our education is going in the right direction with such teachers”, Mrs. Shtereva also shared.
