Bosnia and Herzegovina

Government Educational Agencies: The three Ministers of Education in charge of planning and implementing education policy in the country are the Minister and Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Minister of Education of the Republika Srpska. According to the Constitution of 1995 attached to the Dayton Accords, administration of education in Bosnia and Herzegovina is the responsibility of the two Entities, and in the case of the Federation, the ten Cantons as well. In some parts of the country, Canton-level legislation specifies that educational authority further rests at the municipal level. This has led to a confusing array of responsibilities and government agencies in charge of various aspects of education in the country with often overlapping and contradictory responsibilities, visions, and priorities. In the March 2000 report of the Council of Europe's Committee on Culture and Education, de Puig wrote, "It is increasingly openly acknowledged that the current Bosnian Constitution, as annexed to the Dayton Agreements, is in practice an obstacle to the country's proper functioning." De Puig explained that since 1992, three separate educational systems had established themselves in the country: 1) in the Republika Srpska the education system had been "imported from Serbia and uses texts from Belgrade, the Cyrillic alphabet and the 'Serb language,"' 2) in the three Croat-majority Cantons of the Federation, in parts of two other Cantons, and in the Catholic schools set up by Croatians around the country, a Croatian system was in place, "using school books from Zagreb, the Latin alphabet, and the 'Croat language,"' and 3) a third system developed by Bosniacs in Sarajevo was also in place which used the "Bosniac language" and textbooks produced in Sarajevo while the city was under siege.

By May 2000 the three education ministers in BiH had met and agreed to the following measures aimed at eliminating ethnic segregation and harmonizing the disparate education systems into one integrated system: 1) revision of textbooks to remove objectionable material and improve their quality; 2) creation of a Curriculum Harmonisation Board consisting of one representative of the Ministry, one representative from a Pedagogical Institute for each community, and representatives of the international community to coordinate curricula, exchange information about the education systems, and recommend ways to streamline the teaching of subjects throughout the curricula; 3) development by each ethnic group of curricular modules reflecting the group's culture, language, and literature and the needs of the Roma/Sinti minority and other minorities in BiH, with the modules to be integrated into the curricula of the other two major ethic groups; 4) teaching of both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets, the shared linguistic, literary, and cultural heritage of the three main ethnic communities, and all major religions practiced in BiH; 5) introduction of "shared, core elements" into all curricula to foster "a sense of common identity and citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina" among all students in Bosnia, drawing upon European educational experience and practice, and replacement of the old civic defense/social studies courses with a new Human Rights and Civic Education course; 6) hiring of teachers from the different ethnic groups constituting the Bosnian population to teach in a multiethnic system where teachers are not segregated by ethnicity; 7) recognition of pupils' educational certificates and records and of teachers' and teacher-trainers' qualifications throughout the country, regardless of their place of origin within the country; 8) removal of national subjects textbooks that emphasize one ethnic group and do not refer to BiH as a whole or as the country in which instruction is being given; and 9) peaceful negotiation of all outstanding cases of school crises. This agreement was the product of meetings facilitated by the Office of the High Representative in Sarajevo and other representatives of the international community working to improve the quality of education in BiH and to smooth the way for the education system to be better integrated and more functional.

Educational Budgets: In 1998 BiH spent about 10.8 percent of the national budget on education. That same year, about 4.8 percent of the Federation's budget was spent on education. In the year 2000 about 17 percent of the budget of the RS was planned for educational expenditures, with 4 percent of the Entity's budget reserved for secondary education. In the RS about US$51.7 million was spent on education by the Entity government (including expenditures for the Ministry of Education itself and for primary, secondary, and tertiary education but not including expenditures for secondary-education material expenses, which are the responsibility of the municipalities); about 83 percent of this $51.7 million covered salaries. In general, greater expenditures have been made in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina than in the Republika Srpska on education.

Financing education in BiH is accomplished through taxation and other public financing measures; contributions from private and international donors; legacies, gifts, and foundations; and the sales of school products and services, intellectual services, and material goods. As an indication of the scale of international support given to the reconstruction of schools and the education system in BiH in recent years, it can be noted that the World Bank loan approved in May 2000 for the Education Development Project in BiH was valued at US$10.6 million, with the total project expected to cost $14.6 million (and much of the additional $4 million expected to come from other international partners).