OECD Reviews of Evaluation and Assessment in Education: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) has high levels of educational attainment and performs similar to other Western Balkan economies in international assessments of student learning, like the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). However, large shares of students in BiH continue to leave school without mastering basic competencies and there are signs of inequities in the learning outcomes. BiH also has limited comparable data on teaching and learning and faces considerable capacity and resource constraints. Considering collaboration across the country’s different levels of government is limited, these factors prevent the development and implementation of sustainable education reforms. This review explores some of the contextual features of education systems in BiH and highlights how a stronger evaluation and assessment frameworks can help achieve higher learning standards for all students.
Brčko District
With a population of over 80 000, Brčko District represents less than 1% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and is on average more densely populated than the rest of the country (). Nearly half of the district’s population lives in the city of Brčko, the centre of the administrative unit. The District is one of the richer regions of the country, and its economy is more closely linked to trade than that of many other regions of BiH, as Brčko District has historically taken advantage of its strategic location near the three-party border of BiH, Croatia and Serbia. Due to its unique structure of governance within Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brčko District faces particular challenges, especially when it comes to education. From the outset, the district ensured a harmonised curriculum for its population, while in some other parts of BiH, curricula is still administered differently among ethnic lines. The district’s education system, however, displays a similar structure of governance to that of other self-governing administrative units of BiH of similar size.
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