REFORMS IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA 23 YEARS LATER

Abstract

Despite the hardships it has been experiencing in the years of transition into a market economy and a democratic society, the Republic of Macedonia has been endeavoring to shape its education system in correspondence to global contemporary tendencies. These efforts have been constantly plagued by external and internal challenges that have molded the education system and determined the direction of its future development.
In the first 23 years since independence, a number of interventions were initiated in the education system, primarily on a project level. The goal of these initiatives was the improvement of the quality of education. Unfortunately, most of them were implemented in isolation from each other and in an environment wrought with political influence and tensions, marginalising the significance of the impact of education reform.
Reforms in education have to a large extent followed the the foundations laid in: the Phare VET Reform, the National Programme for Development of Education in the Republic Macedonia 2005-2015, various law and bylaws, the Bologna Process in Higher Education, the Nine-year Primary Education Policy, the Compulsory Secondary Education Policy, the Integral Vocational Education and Training Policy, and the national goal-oriented strategic documents for national and local economic development, poverty and unemployment reduction, and strengthening of the culture of living.