The University Of 
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This will be achieved by trans-national JEP consortium through the next specific project objectives:
To introduce European standards in practical and targeted, demand-driven education, Serbian teachers besides their knowledge on environmental protection issues must be accompanied by special skills needed for development and implementation of training courses for different non-academic target groups. Also, to facilitate the process of knowledge transfer and to make courses more attractive for target groups, upgrading of current teaching equipment must be made. In order to reach these goals, experience of European partners will be used through retraining of Serbian teachers and support in the process of training facilities upgrading and establishing of Regional ECO Training centre at the University of Kragujevac. Retraining of Serbian staff will be carried out by training assignments of European experts in Serbia (workshops “training of trainers”) and by retraining periods for Serbian teachers in West universities and institutions. During retraining activities, members of project team will also close collaborate on development of related teaching materials that will be disseminated to participants of the ecological training courses. During the project life, the entitled training courses for beneficiary (non-academic) groups from Central Serbia will be realized once a year. Having in mind real work load of potential trainees at their everyday engagement, it is decided to organized four week training (one week per month). Participants will be selected according to their experience, basic knowledge of environmental problems and the capacity to apply acquired knowledge in their institutions. It is foreseen to provide at least 50 trainees for each course that would lead to 100 trained staff during the project life. Through the combination of presentations, exercises, group workshops and case studies, course participants will be introduced with up-to-date developments and the best practice in area of the environmental management adopted in EU. In order to assure acceptable quality of training courses, JEP Steering Committee in coordination with Local coordinating/monitoring board, will evaluate and finally accept the courses syllabi and related teaching materials before the realization of the courses. Discussion, summing up and evaluation of a realized course will be carried out after its implementation. Taking into consideration regular feedback from trainees, the adoption and improvement of training courses will be made. The establishment of new Regional ECO Training centre at University of Kragujevac and upgrading of training/teaching facilities will create the stable capacity to serve the local communities in Region by information, training and co-operation on environmental issues. The purchase of modern audio-video equipment, related software and gaining qualifications in development of multimedia presentations will significantly contribute to the improvement of the training/teaching process in general. It should be emphasized, Regional ECO Training centre at University of Kragujevac will play a key role in the process of environmental public awareness rising. Using its infrastructure, Internet portal will be set-up, providing a constant flow of information about project results. Also, within the Internet portal, Serbian staff will build a pilot local environmental information system for the monitoring of environmental state in Kragujevac that could be the base for the future National Environmental Information System. Dissemination of project results will be carried out by distribution of the project e-bulletins using Internet, by publishing, printing and distribution of project promotional materials, and through organization of presentations for media, local/regional/national governmental officials, scientists, business people, citizens and others that want to work together in solving community problems. The project Steering Committee will play the main role regarding the quality control and monitoring as well as management of the project. It consists of the Coordinator, Contractor (Grant Applicant) and one contact persons from each consortium members. Since the Coordinator and Contractor are also the contact persons of their institutions, each participating institution has a representative in this committee. The work of the Committee is prepared and organized by the Coordinator and the Contractor. They are responsible for preparations and realizations of decisions of the Committee, and their work is supported by Local coordinating/monitoring board (consisting of one representative from each Partner country non-academic consortium member and 4 representatives from University of Kragujevac). The Steering Committee will meet once a year, except the final year when the second meeting will be closing session. At the start of each project year, these meetings will be held in Serbia, for the purpose of detailed planning of activities for current project year. Besides, during each project year, e-meetings of Steering Committee (performed using Internet infrastructure) will be held for the evaluation and the final acceptance of developed training courses. Since the project is fully in accordance with national priorities, it is reasonable to expect that the University and local and regional administrative bodies will recognize achieved results and will take the responsibility for maintaining and developing the system in the future. At the end of the project, ecological training courses should be properly defined and structured, and Regional ECO training centre should be fully operational. Therefore, further operation can be also self-funded by imposing economical course fees on participants of the courses that should be constantly given after the completion of this Tempus project. The project will also have effects on restructuring and democratization of local politics and administration because relatively big number of officials and professionals in the local communities, as well as environmentalists from the NGOs, will become acquainted with contemporary methods of environmental management. It will contribute to increase of the public participation in making local environmental decisions that is in compliance with the EU accessing demands and acquis communautaire. |
The wider objective of this project is to contribute in improvement of environmental protection efficiency of Serbian local communities in order to achieve European dimension of ecological integrity as a key element of sustainable community.