OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has high levels of educational attainment and performs similar to other Western Balkan economies in international assessments of student learning, like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, large shares of students in BiH continue to leave school without mastering basic competencies and there are signs of inequities in the learning outcomes. BiH also has limited comparable data on teaching and learning and faces considerable capacity and resource constraints. Considering collaboration across the country’s different levels of government is limited, these factors prevent the development and implementation of sustainable education reforms. This review explores some of the contextual features of education systems in BiH and highlights how a stronger evaluation and assessment frameworks can help achieve higher learning standards for all students.
Empowering teachers to improve their practice
In Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), competent education authorities are beginning to promote the more student-centred approaches to instruction that are increasingly common across OECD countries and can support students in developing their core competences. However, teaching practice has been slow to change, largely because there is a lack of supports and incentives to encourage the adoption of these new approaches. This chapter proposes how BiH could make use of new teacher appraisal procedures and learning opportunities to help transform teaching practices by reinforcing clear expectations, establishing feedback loops that reward performance, and supporting teachers’ initial preparation and their continuous improvement.