Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/educating-children-for-democracy/5014858/
"The schools must lead young people to become self-confident, participating citizens; if everyone doesn't take an interest in politics, it will become the domain of those least suited to it."- Vaclav Havel
In an effort to address the decline in services for young children in Central Europe and the former Soviet Union caused by the economic upheaval after the fall of communism, the Open Society Institute embarked upon the Step by Step Program in 1994.* Like the Head Start Program in the United States, Step by Step was established based on the belief that the early childhood years are among the most formative years in a person's life. Step by Step seeks to educate a new participatory citizenry beginning with the youngest members of society, its children.
Step by Step was developed for countries struggling to make the transition to democratic societies in a period marked by enthusiasm for educational reforms, tempered by harsh realities, including:
- sharp drops in economies of the region;
- decreases in social services;
- fewer teacher retraining programs;
- professional isolation from Western education trends;
- closing of preschools, due to lack of financing; and
- reduced funding to those preschools that survived, which resulted in reductions in national nutrition and health programs, inadequate educational materials, crumbling ...