Certificate award to the participants of the project “Prospects of Financing through EU Funds in Education“

The participants of the project “Prospects of Financing through EU Funds in Education” have been awarded certificates today at the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

During the project implementation in the academic year 2014/15, the training course “Prospects of Financing through EU Funds in Education” was received by 279 participants in total. In 2014, the course was attended by 125 participants, whereas in 2015 by 154 participants from 32 municipality of Vojvodina. The aim of the training was to inform educational workers about the ongoing EU programmes and open calls, teach them how to develop project proposals independently and position them strategically within the defined priorities and measures, as well as financial constraints. During the training, the participants acquired skills and attitudes necessary for taking an active role in the development and implementation of projects in the field of education, both at the local and regional level.

The participants of the conference were welcomed by Mihály Nyilas, Vice-President of the Provincial Government and Provincial Secretary for Education, Regulations, Administration and National Minorities – National Communities and Siniša Lazić, Director of the European Affairs Fund of Autonomous Province of Vojvodina.

In his welcome, Secretary Nyilas indicated that a large number of participants also meant the accomplishment of the task set at the beginning.

“Namely, while planning the training course together with our partners from the European Affairs Fund, the main goal was to provide an opportunity for a larger number of education workers to receive training in project development so as to obtain EU funding. During the project implementation, 52 project ideas were generated, and in our view, it is an excellent result and a good starting point. However, we expect that the institutions whose employees received training will be prepared to make further steps, so that our initial idea could get a true sense. We hope that a large number of the project ideas will be transformed into project proposals and submitted successfully under upcoming calls for proposals, and thus interregional cooperation in schools will be intensified. I want to reflect on and point out the importance of cooperation between provincial institutions, so I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the European Affairs Fund, which recognized the importance of education and dedicated the previous year to providing training to employees in educational institutions gratis, and together with our secretariat contributed to the education workers’ professional development.”

In his welcome speech, Siniša Lazić, Director of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina, highlighted the importance of the Fund’s mission in terms of the training course carried out in the field of education, which would be followed by public utility companies soon. In his opinion, the Republic of Serbia, as well as AP Vojvodina, had an ideal opportunity to get involved in joint EU funded projects through regional cooperation on the path towards EU integration. Of course, the amount of funding for individual projects would mainly depend on the project quality. The Fund made a plan for the period 2015-2020. ”Good partnership is necessary to succeed in obtaining EU funds for projects and to implement them“, said Siniša Lazić.

The summary of the project was presented by Merlida Konstantinović, independent expert associate, on behalf of the Provincial Secretariat of Education, and Tamara Glišić, project officer, on the behalf of the European Affairs Fund of AP Vojvodina.

After talking about the success of achieved international cooperation projects in the field of education in AP Vojvodina, Aleksandar Jovanović, Deputy Secretary for Education, handed the certificates to the educational workers.