Three years ago, thanks to the Ćano Koprivica Foundation, Nikšić got the first preschool in Montenegro that works according to the world-renowned Montessori program. 80 children attend a school where they learn to be independent and learn new knowledge with understanding.
A year ago, the story spread to Bar, where the foundation also opened a Montessori educational unit, and with the help of the Ministry of Education and the municipality of Nikšić, Montessori pedagogy will continue to develop in that city.
"We opened a classroom to see how parents react to that pedagogy, and in two months we already had full capacity. The parents are very satisfied with us, and the most important thing is that the children are happy, they show progress in their work. According to Montessori pedagogy, by using these from her didactic materials, children spontaneously learn to read and write before going to school," says Jelena Žižić from Montessori school Zvono.
Educators trained in Montessori pedagogy work with children aged three to six. One of the educators comes from Serbia, where this program has been expanding since 2002, and thanks to the results, it has started to be applied in state kindergartens as well.
"Children who go to school from Montessori are more independent, they will interpret tasks more easily and quickly, they have an independent way of learning. It's about communication, it's not so much about mechanistic emphasis on memory, but about functional learning," says Montessori educator Eržebet Bedrosian.
Unlike kindergartens where there are overbooking problems, here they don't have that problem. They say that they respect the prescribed standards, so in one classroom of 70 square meters they have up to 25 children and two teachers. However, better conditions mean more money.
"Participation is more expensive than for ordinary kindergartens, but the parents agreed to pay a minimum price for what they get for their children. The price here is much lower than for other Montessori facilities in the environment and the world. If cooperation with the Ministry of Education is achieved, The foundation is ready to lower the participation to the level of public institutions," says Žižić.
The current participation price is 100 euros for a full-day or 60 for a half-day stay. Eighty children attend the school, and thirty of them are on the waiting list. The Ćano Koprivica Foundation says that they have invested around 400 euros in the program for the previous three years, so they called on the state for help. On this occasion, the Minister of Education Predrag Bošković was in the school today, and the construction of the second preschool and the first school building in Nikšić that will work according to the Montessori program has been announced.
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