5.10 Current debates and reforms
In November 2020, the Minister of Education and Science, when presenting the citizens’ budget of the Ministry of education and Science claimed that the Ministry is working intensively on reforms in primary and secondary schools and they are developing a completely new concept of curricula and teaching materials. "We are abandoning the traditional way of learning and moving to an education that creates citizens who think critically and logically and draw conclusions based on facts, evidence and analysis,"[1]. However so far (August 2023), there have been no concrete outcomes in this regard.
In September 2020 the e-conference "Open Government Partnership - Dialogue for the National Action Plan 2021-2023" was held. The purpose of the event was to promote the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative among civil society organizations, to inform them in a more detailed manner about the benefits and progress made and to create space for discussion on the next steps in co-creating the new action plan. At the Conference, the interested parties had a chance to discuss: What are the benefits of the OGP process; Why is involvement in this process important; What are the next steps for preparing the OGP for 2021 - 2023 and which priority areas will be worked on.
The Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2021-2023 is published and it reaffirms the need to further previous commitments and improve their quality of young people in different areas: advocating for access to justice; legal empowerment of citizens and promotion of legal protection especially of young people, marginalized groups and women; improving the delivery of public services; continuation of activities related to public disclosure of information about the real owners; opening of new data as well as activities for prevention of corruption and protection of the environment and air pollution.
Regarding youth participation, in the section “Transparency, Accountability, Proactivity and Inclusion” the government demonstrate their commitments to promote greater involvement of citizens in policy creation, proactivity, freedom and access to information.
[1] http://mon.gov.mk/en/
[2]https://ovp.gov.mk/%d0%be%d0%b4%d1%80%d0%b6%d0%b0%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d0%b5-%d0%ba%d0%be%d0%bd%d1%84%d0%b5%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%bd%d1%86%d0%b8%d1%98%d0%b0%d1%82%d0%b0-%d0%be%d1%82%d0%b2%d0%be%d1%80%d0%b5%d0%bd%d0%be-%d0%b2/ (Accessed December 10, 2020)
[3]https://skopje.gov.mk/media/6163/javen-povik-za-izrabotka-na-strategija-za-mladi-2021-2025.pdf (Accessed December 11, 2020)