“Let’s give the child a chance.” For Mirza Forić, an IT teacher at the Mixed Secondary School in Čelić, this simple sentence became much more than a teaching approach. It became a mindset that transformed the way he viewed the classroom, his students, and his own role as a teacher.

“The moment it clicked for me that it was okay to be different, that I didn’t have to teach like other teachers, I started seeing results,” Mirza recalls.

Today, his classroom is no longer a place where only correct answers are sought. It is a place where questions, diverse opinions, and opportunities for every student to demonstrate their strengths are encouraged. And this is where the story of the changes taking place in schools across Bosnia and Herzegovina over recent years begins.

At the other end of the classroom, a student, Amina Citrić, remembers her first days in secondary school.

“I used to be quite reserved. Through all these activities, I learned how to express my opinion and share it, because it can help start something new and contribute to positive change in our community. It is a great feeling when you realize you have contributed to something meaningful.”

Her story is not only about self-confidence. It is about finding her own voice. It is about the moment when a student stops being a passive observer of the learning process and becomes someone who believes their ideas can make a difference.

Although they speak from different perspectives, Mirza and his student are connected by the same experience – that of a school evolving together with the people who make it what it is.

Today, schools are no longer simply places for acquiring knowledge. Increasingly, they are becoming spaces where students learn how to think critically, collaborate, respect diversity, and actively participate in the life of their communities. This is the approach that is being advanced through the “Quality Education for All” project, jointly implemented by the Council of Europe and the European Union within the “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye” programme, as well as through the complementary Council of Europe project funded by voluntary contributions under the Council of Europe Action Plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Today, six schools in Bosnia and Herzegovina serve as Resource Centres for Democratic School Culture – places where new ideas are developed and experiences are shared with other schools. In Orašje, Čelić, Brčko, Prijedor, Kiseljak, and Zenica, teachers and students are demonstrating together how democracy, inclusion, and participation can become part of everyday school life.

Sometimes, these changes emerge through small but significant moments.

In one classroom in Brčko, a group of the youngest students discussed the fairy tale The Emperor’s New Clothes. Through an adapted version of this well-known story, they were not only learning literature. They were learning how to ask questions, recognise different perspectives, and form their own opinions. They were learning that it is okay to think independently.

In other schools, students are launching initiatives in their local communities, participating in Critical Thinking Clubs, or working alongside teachers to design activities that connect schools, parents, and local communities.

Change is not always immediately visible. Sometimes it begins when a teacher decides to approach a lesson differently. Sometimes when a student raises their hand for the first time and shares what they think. Sometimes when an entire school begins listening to voices it had not heard before.

Over the course of the project, 33 primary and secondary schools from different parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina participated in training and mentoring programmes aimed at developing democratic school culture. More than 150 teachers completed training and implemented over 300 teaching practices that promote critical thinking, participation, and active citizenship, with the support of the Centre for Educational Initiatives Step by Step and proMENTE Social Research.

Yet behind these numbers lie hundreds of individual stories like Mirza’s and that of his student. Stories about a teacher who discovered he did not have to teach like everyone else. About a young woman who found the courage to express what she thinks. And about schools that demonstrate every day that education is not only preparation for exams, but preparation for life in a democratic society.

Because sometimes, all it takes for a major change is one simple decision – to give a child a chance.