21.02.2005

TOL/OSI EDUCATION PROJECT

Transitions Online (TOL), with the support of the Open Society Institute's Educational Support Program (OSI/ESP), has launched an education section on its website, http://www.tol.org. The only news source dedicated to providing timely, objective, and local information from all the countries of the post-communist region, TOL is excited to have targeted support to cover the incredibly important educational sector and provide more information and greater understanding of the issues throughout Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

It's an ambitious project, and one that will require excellent contributions from a wide variety of educational professionals and journalists interested in covering education.

With that in mind, we are seeking proposals for articles on education- related topics, with a special emphasis on secondary education. The following education priority areas are of special interest to us: public accountability, which includes management, governance and transparent policy processes; equity, which includes minority rights, gender, equal access to education and in particular equal education opportunities for disadvantaged, and anti-corruption efforts that intersect accountability and equity.

Examples of story ideas include (but are not limited to):

• Language policies
• The situation of children at risk
• Comparative articles on government spending in education
• Integration policies for children with disabilities
• Teacher strikes/working conditions
• Adult education topics such as teacher retraining possibilities, vocational training
• Examination practices and assessment issues
• Current policies and practices on education for Roma and other minorities.

Some examples of stories can be viewed at the TOL education section page:
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOL/section.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=103&tpid=68

All published articles will be paid at TOL's standard rates of USD.10/word, to a maximum of $150 except in cases of investigative or extremely long articles. We are especially keen to identify young, local contributors and those who may want to become part of TOL's educational training network that is being set up as a part of the project.

In addition to the several articles per month that will appear on the TOL site, TOL will also be publishing the Open Society Education News, a bi-monthly newsletter highlighting not only the articles that have been published over the two months but also education-related news and upcoming events. Therefore we would also like to invite your contributions to the news and events section of the newsletter. However, TOL will not be able to provide any financial contributions for these submissions. TOL reserves the right to select the most appropriate announcements for this section.

Article proposals and news and events ideas will be reviewed on an ongoing basis, and should be addressed to the project manager and editor, Nicole Rosenleaf Ritter (rittern@tol.org).