The Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) has announced that 100 secondary schools from the Western Balkans are selected to participate in the RYCO Superschools exchange programme. The selected schools from the region will implement regional exchanges including more than 1400 students, while RYCO will offer various capacity-building opportunities for 200 teachers. Among these 100 schools: 17 are coming from Albania, 20 from Bosnia and Herzegovina, 11 from Kosovo, 9 from Montenegro, 23 from North Macedonia and 20 from Serbia.

The 4th Superschools Open Call received over 100 proposals, resulting in 50 selected school partnerships across the Western Balkans. Of these, 37 partnerships were established under LOT 1 (newly founded) and 13 under LOT 2 (supporting the sustainability of existing collaborations). All projects aim to advance peacebuilding and reconciliation while fostering intercultural learning among students and communities. This year, a special focus is placed on the homestays component, which will be implemented by the 13 LOT 2 partnerships, offering students the chance to experience bilateral exchanges within local families and communities.

The implementation of the two exchanges in two local communities of schools involved in single Superschools project, will happen from November 15, 2025 to April 15, 2026. Each partner school will organize one exchange visit to the partnering one lasting up to 6 days with a group of up to 15 students and 1-2 teachers. Besides two exchanges, each school will organize local outreach activity to spread information about the benefits of such projects, importance of non-formal education, youth activism and regional cooperation, etc. Overall, 100 local outreach activities, gathering more than 1800 participants, will take place throughout the region in the abovementioned period. Through the exchange scheme, students and teachers will have the chance to travel, present themselves, their schools and customs to their hosts and learn new things about local communities all throughout the region.

Following the official announcement of the winning schools for the Superschools Program, a series of “Meet the Superschools” high-level events will take place in each capital of the Western Balkans Six (WB6) throughout September 2025.

The “Meet the Superschools” events (in chronological order) will be held as follows:

• Bosnia & Herzegovina – Sarajevo, 2 September 2025
• Montenegro – Podgorica, 4 September 2025
• Albania – Tirana, 11 September 2025
• North Macedonia – Skopje, 23 September 2025
• Serbia – Belgrade, 26 September 2025 at 12:00, Hotel Moskva
• Kosovo – Pristina, 29 September 2025

Background

About the RYCO Superschools programme

RYCO Superschools is a programme for school exchanges in WB6 with the objectives to support the peacebuilding and reconciliation process and intercultural learning and dialogue among schools, students and their communities. The programme is part of a multi donor project, co-financed by the European Union and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) together with the RY