Activities of the European Support for the Inclusion of Roma, financed by the European Union and carried out by the OSCE Mission in Serbia, include support to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development in establishing and reinforcing a program aimed at prevention of the dropping out of school by Roma secondary school students.
In cooperation with the Ministry and Roma Education Fund, a scholarship for Roma students who attend secondary school in Serbia would be provided, because they belong to a group highly likely to drop out of school.
The program is, in fact, a successful resumption of the project titled Inclusion of Roma Students into Secondary Schools in Vojvodina carried out by the Roma Education Fund, Provincial Secretariat for Education, Administration and National Communities and Open Society Fund in the 2007/08 school year.
Additional individual and group mentor support is envisaged for Roma students who do not meet criteria for the program of state scholarships in the whole territory of Republic of Serbia.
In order to devise a better mentor support for students on scholarships, a workshop was organised at Mount Zlatibor between August 20 and 22 with experienced mentors who were already engaged in the execution of the Inclusion of Roma Students into Secondary Schools in Vojvodina project.
The workshop gathered 28 teacher-mentors for Roma secondary school students in order to articulate mentor experience in the work with Roma students on scholarships in Vojvodina, so that a better support for new students and mentors could be developed.
During the workshop, students drafted a job description for mentors based on experience and good practice, improved formats for planning and reports on work of mentors with students, and established a dynamic for carrying out five priority trainings for new mentors.
