The training courses for senior employees of the Ministry of Education about the development and management of the projects were held from May to November 2007. The aim of these training courses was to inform the representatives of the Ministry of Education as well as their colleagues from the Ministry of Economics and Regional Development, the Institute for the Improvement of Education and the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluating with the possibility to use the programmes and funds of the European Union as instruments for making the educational policy.

During these four three - day workshops 18 seminar participants attended the training course for assessing (estimating) the needs and developing project proposals, managing projects financed by the European Union funds and monitoring and evaluating the projects. The acquired experiences should be especially useful in the period to come, when IPA funds start operating.

TRAINING DESCRIPTION

Projects development and management as tools for quality policymaking in education

Module 1: Policymaking for TVET development. Using EU programmes as policy tools
The objectives of the first module are to make the participants understand the systematic environment of the educational policy within which the development funds function and to find ways in which the development projects can be used as powerful instruments of the policy with the aiming at achievement of national priorities in relation to vocational education development.


Module 2: Needs Assessment and Project definition. Writing successful project proposals
The objectives of the module are understanding the role of assessing (estimating) in defining good project ideas and building capacities for successful project applications with the aim of obtaining the financial resources. The contents of the module included defining and understanding the needs, techniques for assessing the needs and setting priorities, consultation and validation processes, defining intervention projects, structural and textual elements of project applications, task descriptions for development projects, defining the focus of the project in accordance with the priorities and needs, criteria for successful applications for the project and the tools for quality control.

Module 3: Project Cycle Management
The contents of the module, the objective of which was getting to know the basic terms and means specific for the Guidelines for managing the projects funded by the European Union institutions, included: key steps in managing the project cycle (identification, formulation, implementation, evaluation, revision), project managers (types of competencies, roles and responsibilities, facilitative leadership in managing a project) and the approach based on logical framework (analysis and planning).


Module 4: Project Monitoring and Evaluation
During the fourth training course the participants became familiar with the development of the coherent system of monitoring and evaluating projects. The topics covered included: monitoring system and instruments and the role of monitoring in project activities, evaluation of project implementation, project feasibility and basics for making policy - evaluation reports in the processes of policy making and decision making.