Ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih Maksima - CROATIA
Ustanova za obrazovanje odraslih Maksima (Adult Education Centre Maksima) is a non-profit organization established in 2013 by a group of teacher training enthusiasts wishing to share their experience and knowledge. Its headquarters is in Split, the second-largest city in Croatia.
We are a teacher training center and a school for foreign languages. Our teacher training center offers high-quality training and learning programs as well as professional and personal development courses. We place special emphasis on life-long learning educational programs and deliver excellent training in the field of youth education and development.
We have vast experience regarding ERASMUS+ KA1 projects and are always in search of new partners for ERASMUS+ KA2 projects. We organize seminars, training courses, study visits, and job shadowing.
Our mission is
- to promote values of inclusion, diversity, and tolerance, increase the quality of school education,
- and to support the development of professional networks across Europe. We are also focusing on youth education, training, supporting their professional development, and network of youth workers.
When Croatia joined the EU in 2013 the whole world of Erasmus+ opportunities opened for us and we welcomed the opportunity to contribute to disseminating our expertise and examples of good practice. Having decades of teaching experience ourselves, we perfectly understand all the challenges teachers face today and we are here to make this struggle easier. Our staff was educated at both Croatian and international universities giving us a multifaceted perspective about education methodologies.
Our Teacher Training Centre is dedicated to always implementing new and innovative teaching methods that lead to better performance, increased self-confidence, and enhanced teachers’ knowledge and skills.
Over the years Maksima has established a strong network of contacts all over Europe. On a local level, we have been collaborating with the University of Split and its professors on the development of ICT and game-based learning programs. We have also had a long relationship with a number of kindergartens, primary and secondary schools, and museums in Split while offering school visits during our teacher training courses within the scope of Erasmus+. We have also been collaborating with the “Down’s Syndrome Association” teaching English children with special needs. On a wider level, we are continuously working on enriching our European contact list thus spreading it to hundreds of kindergartens, schools, and universities in all the EU countries as well as non-EU countries like Turkey, Albania, and N. Macedonia.
Since 2013 we have also participated in around 200 Erasmus+ projects as a host partner organization of the European mobility programs and have huge knowledge and experience in this particular field. We have hosted over 1000 participants from many EU countries and shared as many certificates so far. Erasmus+ staff mobility training courses are at the very focus of our training, lectures, and workshops and we have received positive feedback and have the highest ratings and reviews.
Our network allows us to disseminate information via our website as well as newsletters and Social Media networks (Instagram and Facebook) which together count as many as 20.000 followers. Our teacher training center hosts hundreds of teachers from all over the continent which facilitates the dissemination part as it gives us face-to-face opportunities to present our projects and intellectual outputs.
Our teacher training covers a variety of burning topics such as
-enhancing motivation strategies,
-developing 21st-century skills,
-working on digital education, creativity in the classroom,
-introducing technology,
-bullying prevention, special needs in education,
-strategies for reducing early school leaving,
-mastering soft skills and many more.
We believe we have the ability and capacity to carry out any project because, firstly, we have carefully chosen, reliable partners each willing to contribute greatly to this project and carry their share of the load. Handling hundreds of courses, coordinating and developing programs, dealing with KA1 staff mobilities, and being responsible for numerous interns from all over Europe that come to our institution in order to learn and gain experience, we believe we do not lack the competence nor the skills to carry out this project successfully to the end.
Our aim is to expand our partner community to create new experiences, make new friends, and collaborate in future projects. We are in constant search of new partners wishing to expand our network of colleagues and collaborations. Both staff and external consultants (over 20 of them) are specialists in their area focusing on Erasmus+ staff mobility training courses for educators from all over Europe.
