Promotion and development of cultural education
Targeted and systematic care for cultural education on the national level and partnership between educational and cultural sectors in this field.
In the National Programme for Culture 2008-2011, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Education and Sport defined the arts and cultural education as the long-term objective of the Slovenian cultural policy and set their common objectives and measures at the national level. It is stressed in the definition of public interest and cultural policy tasks in this field that cultural education includes an aspect of accepting culture as a creative or productive aspect. Thus, it includes culture for children and youth – when an individual is the “user” of culture and plays the role of a viewer, reader, listener, visitor, etc. Moreover, it also includes culture created by children and youth or culture with children and youth – when they are actively involved in cultural activities.
The NPC 2008-2011 sets the following national objectives:
1. Systematic care for the programmes for children and youth offered by cultural institutions in all fields of culture, the accessibility and popularisation of culture among young people.
2. Cultural education as a cross-curricular content and dimension.
3. Systematic care for further professional training in cultural education of the professional workers in education and additional training of the experts and artists who prepare projects and programmes for children and youth in kindergartens and schools or for them.
4. Preparation of an Action Plan of Cooperation and setting up of a network of participating partners, educational, and cultural institutions in the field of cultural education.
5. To ensure, in particular, availability of information on quality cultural goods (offers) for children and youth within the framework of the national cultural portal.
Challenges identified in the implementation of this measure:
Some objectives are only partly realised, due to financial and organisational limitations (human resources), the basic aims still remain the same (as included in the draft of the new National programme for culture).
By means of public calls the ministry encouraged cultural institutions to prepare quality projects and programmes for youth and children. Special attention was given to additional professional education and training to professionals in educational and cultural institutions.
Since 2009, on the base of the aims in the National Programme for Culture 2008- 2011 the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Education and Sport and the National Education Institute of Slovenia have organized the Cultural Bazaar – Presentation of Culture. In 2011, at this one-day national event, more than 200 Slovene cultural institutions and numerous cultural creators presented themselves to professional workers from kindergartens, and from primary and secondary schools from all over Slovenia. Every year a catalogue of the Cultural Bazaar is published. In the catalogue, the participating cultural institutions present their offer for kindergartens and schools in the current school year. The catalogue specifically indicates which projects can be hosted at the school (mobile projects), and marks the projects that are free of charge. In the catalogue, they also emphasized that most projects, especially the mobile ones, are also suitable for children and young people with special needs. The ministry web page includes a special section on Cultural education and Cultural Bazar. In 2010-2011 a special target call for education in arts and culture was prepared, with a stress on participation of artists and cultural instituions in kindergartens and schools and vice versa, visits of children in theatres and movie theatres.
In the framework of the Operational programme of the development of human resources 2007-2013 within the 3rd development priority a public call by the Ministry of Education was aimed at strengthening the competence of cultural awarenness and expression. Three projects were selected: on pre-school level "Cultural enrichening of the youngest", on elementary school level "Culture encounter" and on secondary school level "Cultural anti-cyclon".
in 2008 the ministries of culture and education initiated establishment of interdisciplinary working group on cultural education, which prepared "National guidelines for inclusion of cultural and art education to education". By support of the Ministry of Education and National Education Institute of Slovenia a textbook with best practices in cultural and arts education was published. Cultural and arts education was also included in the Action plan for implementation of programme for children and youth 2009-2010 and Action plan for prevention of violence in family 2010-2011. An e-textbook "Through art about interpersonal relations" was prepared for professionals in educational institutions.
US$790,000.00