The pre-university education institutions will receive a teaching guide designed to help form intercultural competencies. The book was compiled by the Education Center “Pro Didactica” within a project implemented by the National Youth Council of Moldova.

In a news conference at IPN, “Pro Didactica” head Rima Bezede said the teaching aid includes theoretical benchmarks for forming, developing and strengthening intercultural competencies and suggestions for doing practical work. “We hope this work will really contribute to improving the education process from the angle of intercultural competence and will help form a positive attitude to diversity,” she stated.

Viorica Goras-Postica, coordinator at “Pro Didactica”, said the guidebook was approved and is recommended by the National Curriculum Council of the Ministry of Education. It includes a number of articles written by professors, doctors of science. One of them is about the promotion of intercultural dialogue by building organizational culture. Another article refers to practices for developing intercultural competencies. There are also described methods that should be used during classes and outside them, at summer camps for example.

Catalina Dumbraveanu, project coordinator at the National Youth Council of Moldova, said the guide will be distributed first to eight regions where the ethnic minorities are greater in number, namely the municipalities of Chisinau and Balti, the districts of Edinet, Cimislia, Soroca, Cahul, and Ungheni, and the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia. Today, by two copies of the book will be sent to the heads of the methodological centers of all the education divisions of the country. The book was issued in a number of 1,500 copies and will be donated to all the school libraries.

The two editions of the book, in Romanian and in Russian, will be available on the websites of the Ministry of Education and the Education Center “Pro Didactica”. The teaching aid was worked out within the Intercultural Dialogue in Moldova Project that is implemented by the National Youth Council with financial support from the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation of Switzerland.