International training workshop was held in Sarajevo

An international training workshop took place in Sarajevo on June 26 – 27. Bulgaria was presented at it by Gyulser Halil and Ali Halil – teachers in the Religious school in the town of Momchilgrad.

The event was organized by the Center for Advanced Studies in Sarajevo, in cooperation with the Islamic Community in Bosna and Herzegovina and the Albanian Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization. The event brought together at a round table researchers, teachers and authors of books from several Balkan countries, such as Albania, Bosna and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Kosovo and others.

The training was led by the specialists from the prestigious German Georg Eckert Institute for International Textbook Research.

The improvement of the textbooks on Islamic education is one of the main objectives of the institutions that take care about the Islamic educational and academic activity in the Southeast European countries.

The aim of this workshop was to make a review of the current status of the textbooks in the Islamic schools and the relevant professionals to get acquainted with the latest achievements in the field of writing these texts. The experts from the German Institute presented a comprehensive research and didactic materials.

In the first part of the workshop were presented general quality standards for textbooks, the structure of a textbook, curricular content of textbooks, the didactic design of textbooks. After discussions and debated on the religious education in the Islamic schools the different countries also presented their experience.

During the second day of the workshop the participants were familiarized with the methodologies, used in composing contemporary texts for religious education. Then they analyzed some texts used in different European countries, in the way that are defined the main skills which religious textbooks have to follow based on the German model of didactic text.

After two intense days with scientific presentations, analysis, discussions and group work the workshop successfully completed. At the end of the workshop the organizers and the participants made the relevant conclusions for the further development of this initiative. With regard to this it was recommended establishing a webpage where to publish the next new researches in this field and the participants will have the opportunity to expand their cooperation for achieving positive results in the Islamic religious schools in the Balkans.

Author Gyulser Halil.