Swedish international development cooperation agency writes about Belgrade Open School

Project “Raising Accountability of Universities in Serbia” has been presented this month in article published on web page of Swedish international development cooperation agency. This project is supported by Olof Palme International Center within its Sida-funded program.

Center for Development of Education carries this initiative from 2012, whose goal is to prevent corruption on faculties and universities in Serbia. The very same goal also had the monitoring research on transparency of higher education institutions in Serbia, which has been conducted in period April – August 2013. Results of this research are available here.

In Serbia, the Olof Palme International Center works to strengthen civil society in demanding greater transparency in the country's governance, and thus become an important actor to be listened to.

This article presents approach of BOS which follows this pattern: If transparency is high and all information is available on the universities’ websites, then it's harder to demand bribes or charge additional fees. But students also need to become aware of that corruption is a problem that will ultimately affect them, and how they can act to discourage it.

Belgrade Open School is one of 15 organizations that the Olof Palme International Center cooperates with, within its Sida-funded program to increase transparency and accountability through actors in civil society.