Sofia, September 11-12, 2021
"We can explain the widespread gullible reading of fake news and the inexplicable confidence in aggressively spread conspiracy theories with the lack of global education and knowledge of the world." With these words, the President of the Bulgarian Platform for International Development (BPID) Professor Petranka Fileva opened the IX National Conference on Global Education "Education for Global Citizenship in the context of Covid-19. Common Horizons - Different Realities ”, which was held on September 11 and 12 at the Center for Training Students for the MES Olympiads in Sofia. The conference is organized for the ninth time by BPID in cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science (MoE), with the financial support of the Global Education Network Europe (GENE), co-financed by the European Union and brought together over 70 principals and teachers from all over the country, representatives of civil society organizations and experts from the competent institutions.
In addition to purely educational topics, there was a serious focus on the health challenges faced by students, teachers and parents. The representative of the WHO in Bulgaria, Associate Professor Mihail Okoliiski, drew attention to the post-Covid reality at school and the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of children, teachers and parents. The next panelist - Dr. Radosveta Stamenkova, Executive Director of BFPA, challenged the audience to actively participate with the topic "What we (haven’t) learned ... - about the health competencies of children, teachers and parents." BFPA has been an active member of BPMR since the founding of the Platform and we are pleased to participate in the annual conferences on Global Education, especially since we are fighting the myths and fake news about health (and not only) long before Covid-19.
A comprehensive model for building key competencies at school on online security and digital citizenship, implemented as a pilot last year at middle school №90 in Lyulin quarter, was presented by the Center for Safe Internet.
During the event, teachers and practitioners in the field of education also had the opportunity to visit three workshops related to building key competencies in school, online media literacy and how students can take on the role of diplomats through UN Models.
The Ninth National Conference on Global Education ended with the official award ceremony of eight schools across the country, winners in this year's edition of the Global School and Global School in Action competitions.
The conference was held in strict compliance with current anti-epidemic measures through a hybrid model, according to which participants were divided into 3 rooms, connected by video conferencing and the opportunity to actively participate in all discussions, as well as by streaming on social networks.
Video from the two days of the conference can be found at the following links:
Day One
Day Two
