Bearing in mind that the epidemiological situation in Serbia is such that face to face meetings are currently possible, the Quality Education for All action team decided to gather the members of the Steering Committee in Belgrade on 16 October 2020. After months of not being able to meet in person, this was a great opportunity to discuss what has been done, how to proceed and most importantly, how to adequately respond to the needs of the action beneficiaries.

The COVID-19 crisis has proved that fostering a democratic culture in schools is more relevant than ever before, and during the meeting it was again confirmed that what the action wants to achieve - in firm partnership with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, the two Education Institutes and our main beneficiary - schools, teachers, students, parents and local communities - is to make a real and tangible difference, and which results from the field unequivocally show.

The meeting was opened by Mr Tobias Flessenkemper, Head of the Council of Europe office in Belgrade who stressed the importance of the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture and reminded the members of the committee about the European Convention on Human Rights that was signed 70 years ago.

The action team presented the results from the previous period including the rapid response developed during the first wave of the pandemic. It was also highlighted that adaptations will be a continuous process while maintaining the expected outcomes of the action. The present members of the committee, including the Ministry of Education, the University of Belgrade, the Institute for Education Improvement and others, agreed that the work that was done was substantial and encouraged the project team to continue in the same fashion.

The action Quality education for all is implemented under the joint European Union/Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022“.