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In the days between 10 and 12 of March Center "Amalipe" held a working meeting with the Board of principals for intercultural education, and with young people and parents who lead groups within "Your Lesson" Project on activities of interest "Mom and Dad are great teachers" "Youth is tolerance and impetus to education," "At school in Bulgaria and in Europe." Participants discussed current developments in two of the innovations that Center "Amalipe" and schools of the network "Every student will be a winner" introduced in the current academic year - parents and young people leading extracurricular activities, and principals - mentors.

Project "Your Lesson", which the MES launched in September 2017 enables project groups to be guided not only by teachers but also by external lecturers. The project also enables schools to delegate extracurricular activities to individuals and legal entities. Center "Amalipe" got the trust of more than 30 partner schools and as a result, parents and young people began to lead three sessions of interest "Mom and Dad are great teachers," "Youth is tolerance and impetus to education," "At school in Bulgaria and in Europe. "Despite the recognized risk - parents don't have higher education, and young people (most of them are students) have no teaching experience, the previous months showed the extraordinary success of innovation: classes are visited with great interest - not only by students, but also by their parents ...

Principals - mentors assist new schools in the program "Every student will be a winner" as well as schools from the network that attempt to transform into unified and / or innovative. Driving innovation is the indisputable fact that many principals have gained vast experience in overcoming everyday problems faced by schools in the network and will not only help, but also will inspire their colleagues.

Ministry of Education stopped funding the closure of schools, which are single in the settlement, separated by at least 10 km. from another school and have at least 80 students. In July kindergartens and schools that teach preschool preparatory groups / classes of children at risk and children for whom Bulgarian is not their mother tongue may apply to the Ministry for further activities and didactic materials. These and many other innovative features are set out in the draft National Program for Development of Education 2017, published for public consultation.

Ministry of Education and Science (MES) proposes to finance 11 national programs Two of them are new: NP "Development of preschool education" and NP "Training for IT career" and the other nine were implemented during the previous year. For the 11 NP-s will be provided additional financing of 59.5 million lev for pre-school and school education. in 2016 the amount was 50.394 million lev. The funds are provided from the budget of Ministry of education and science.

In NP "Development of preschool education" will be eligible kindergartens and schools that teach preschool preparatory groups / classes of children at risk and / or children for whom Bulgarian is not their mother tongue. The goal is the children to receive real equal start before entering first grade. The Ministry will fund additional activities with them in small groups of 4 children, so that they can overcome the language barrier and to acquire necessary for school habits. The program also provides teaching materials and encourages parents to participate in activities. Kindergartens and schools will be eligible for a simplified procedure for funding of up to 3 groups in July.

In pursuance of the objectives in the Concept to encourage software developers, adopted by the Council of Ministers in December 2015, has been developed a new national program "Training for IT career."

There are innovative elements in some of the "old" programs. For example, NP "School Network Optimization" provides "In the municipal programs / optimization projects will not be funded measures for the closure of schools in settlements in which the school is single,  the number of students is over 80 and the next closest school is more than 10 km away. "

Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance "Amalipe" was the only organization that sent proposals within the announced procedure for public consultation before the submission of the programs in the Council of Ministers. The organization offers NP "Optimization of the school network" to provide support for repairs and equipment also to the "unified schools" that will need similar support for the introduction of vocational education. Another suggestion is not to fund the closure of rural schools that train at least 70 students (not 80 as provided in this text). Suggestions were also made to NP "Development of preschool education" designed to promote more effective participation of parents.

Following approximately one month of pilot testing of the small scale interventions in all three countries the second transnational project meeting and study visit took place in Bucharest and Ialomita in Romania in 27 & 28 March 2017.  The aim of the study visit was to exchange experience and best practices with organizations and schools related to Roma inclusive education in Romania. In total 16 representatives of the six partners’ organizations of the project participated in the study visit and the transnational project meeting.

On the first day of the study visit partners had the opportunity to visit the school of Cazanesti village in Ialomita county, where Roma and non-Roma children of the school along with all the school personnel, and other local representatives related to Roma issues warmly welcomed the project’s representatives with a traditional custom.

The partners visited the kindergarten “Ready Set Go” which implements an action with preschoolers and the “Toy library”.

Following the visit to Ialomita County, the project partners took part in the methodological seminar which held at AEVB offices in Bucharest. The seminar aimed at discussing and analyzing the methodological aspects of the pilot implementation of the three small scale interventions. The partners shared their thoughts and concerns and each partner explained how the intervention has been adapted to the specific socio-economic conditions of each country.

On the second day of the study visit partners had the opportunity to visit the Bora Multifuctional Centre of Slobozia, in Bora neighborhood to Ialomita County, which is currently implementing the pilot small scale intervention.

 Τhe second study visit closed with a visit to Ialomița County School Inspectorate where the second translational project meeting took place. The representatives of all project partners shared their thoughts on project implementation, discussed the best practices and planned the next steps of the project. The next study visit will be in Pavlikeni in 15-16 May 2017. Until then, all partners are continuing the implementation of the pilot small scale interventions.