International Youth Day, which is celebrated on August 12 around the world, was organized this year under the slogan Transformation of Education. Jelena Sapic, a coordinator of the Future Studies, BOS educational programme, participated in a Dialogue Café aimed at sharing experiences, examples of good practices and establishing cooperation on future projects with stakeholders in the region.
The theme of International Youth Day, Transformation of Education, has focused on the efforts to make education inclusive and accessible to all young people. In line with the Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all), participants of the Dialogue Café organized by the United Nations Association of Serbia and the Belgrade City Youth Office discussed the opportunities and challenges in transforming education for the 21st century.
Jelena presented the BOS non-formal education programme, which for the 27th year in a row, responds to the needs of students from Belgrade universities for knowledge and skills that the formal system does not meet or introduces late. She emphasized that education is important for the development of young people in order to grow into responsible citizens and then into a skilled workforce that is prepared for the series of changes that the 21st century and the Fourth Industrial Revolution bring along. In her view, education has been and will be the framework and mechanism that produces broader societal consequences. Therefore, while there is a separate SDG 4, transformation and investments in education contribute to the realization of other SDGs such as Goal 5 - Gender Equality, SDG 8 concerned with decent work and quality employment, and finally to the SDG 1 aimed at the poverty eradication.
Contributors to this Dialogue Café were also Maja Zmukic and Aleksandra Majstorovic, representatives of the Youth Offices in Belgrade and Novi Pazar, professor dr Andrijana Maksimovic from the State University of Novi Pazar, Katarina Vuckovic, representative of the Institute for Youth Development - Kult (Sarajevo), and Igor Milosevic from the Association for Democratic Prosperity - Zid (Podgorica).
