What will you do if you find out that your child is bullying another child?
Can school sports be accessible to children with disabilities?
Why is there no healthy food in lafki or is it hugely overpriced?
These are some of the questions that the youth from the “Megaphone” Youth Network and over 260 students in the hall of Voice It 2023 asked the experts and the representatives of the legislative and executive power, who joined in the discussions about #Bullying, #Curriculum and #SportAndHealthyFood.
See below an overview of the first topic that the children addressed – Curriculum – and what the politicians answered on the topics that were important to them. The conversation was attended by: Elisaveta Belobradova, vice-chairman of the Education Commission and member of the Parliamentary Group for Children of the NNC, Emilia Ivanova, mentor of the “Schools for example” program of Teach for Bulgaria, Denis and Eddie from “Megafon”.
Megaphone research shows that students want the program to be more interactive and interesting, to have classes in civics, personal and professional development, sports, arts and music, but their format should be discussed with the children themselves. A format of the classes that they recognise as interesting is the discussion format, so that they can hear different points of view. This was shared by Dennis and Eddie and asked:
– What are the biggest challenges you think are currently facing the curriculum?
– Is it possible to introduce subjects that are aimed at the individual interests of the student and that prepare him for life?
– How to change the education system so that students get better results at the DZI?
From the answers of the experts, it became clear that the teachers also considered the curriculum to be burdensome and with too much volume.
Emilia Ivanova: There is too much factuality without enough time for it to be revised, the topics are defoucused and without integration between their representation in the different disciplines and in reality the same knowledge is represented in different subjects at different times without making the relevant connections.
Elisaveta Belobradova: In our country, parents and children can hardly imagine an extended school year, but it is no coincidence that in other countries the school year lasts for more weeks and, if we want enough time for quality perception of the material, the school year must be extended.
Emilia Ivanova: Subjects aimed at students’ interests are already being introduced in schools, but the more important question is how to rework the existing disciplines into ones with useful content. As an example, civic education classes were given, as they are now, but they are perhaps not in their best form.
Elisaveta Belobradova: Whatever changes and programs are introduced, teachers must be well prepared in advance and be able to implement them. In order to have better exam results, we all need to be united as a society and focused on exactly what knowledge we require and what knowledge is important for young people. It should be clear that the low score is actually the arithmetic average of all the scores from the whole country and the problem is not that there are no high scores, but that the weak ones prevail. In Bulgaria there are many children from vulnerable groups, many poor children who do not have access to quality education. If we work focused with those who do not have access and help the poorest, incl. to those who have a language problem – then the overall assessment will go up.
See what young people asked in the topic #Bullying and what experts and politicians answered.
