How Local Self-Government Bodies Can Implement a School Participatory Budget in Their Community: Free Online Course

07/ 11/ 2025

The educational online platform Zrozumilo! offers the course “School Participatory Budget for Local Self-Government Bodies”. It provides a step-by-step guide for implementing this digital tool for youth and childrens participation, enabling representatives of local self-government bodies to learn how to support youth initiatives and help bring them to life. The School Participatory Budget (SPB) helps shape conscious and influential Ukrainian citizens. Its implementation involves active participation from three key groups: representatives of local self-government bodies; representatives of educational institutions (trainers); students. This course is designed for representatives of structural units within local self-government bodies. Over the course of five lectures, participants will learn: why the community should implement SPB and how it differs from other forms of youth participation; how to ensure SPB implementation at the community level; how to implement SPB in educational institutions; whether SPB can be implemented without money; how to monitor and evaluate SPB outcomes; how and why to use the e-democracy platform e-DEM. The lectures include templates for regulatory documents, instructions for working with the electronic system, and other useful materials. Who is this course for? The materials will be useful for representatives of local self-government structural units who intend to introduce a school participatory budget in their community. Course Structure: Lecture 1: What is a School Participatory Budget and Why the Community Needs It Lecture 2: Preparing to Launch SPB Lecture 3: SPB — Not Always About Money Lecture 4: Monitoring in SPB Lecture 5: Tasks of Local Self-Government on the e-DEM Platform The online course was developed as part of the Swiss-Ukrainian EGAP Program, implemented by East Europe Foundation, and the Council of Europe project “Strengthening Multi-Level Governance and Local Democracy to Support Ukraine’s Recovery,” carried out by the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance under the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, with expert and methodological support from the NGO “Civil Society Development Forum.” Course Registration: https://courses.zrozumilo.in.ua/courses/course-v1:eef+EEF-065-2+October-2025/about

The School Participatory Budget (SPB) helps shape conscious and influential Ukrainian citizens. Its implementation involves active participation from three key groups:

representatives of local self-government bodies;
representatives of educational institutions (trainers);
students.

This course is designed for representatives of structural units within local self-government bodies.

Over the course of five lectures, participants will learn:

why the community should implement SPB and how it differs from other forms of youth participation;
how to ensure SPB implementation at the community level;
how to implement SPB in educational institutions;
whether SPB can be implemented without money;
how to monitor and evaluate SPB outcomes;
how and why to use the e-democracy platform e-DEM.

The lectures include templates for regulatory documents, instructions for working with the electronic system, and other useful materials.

Who is this course for?

The materials will be useful for representatives of local self-government structural units who intend to introduce a school participatory budget in their community.

Course Structure:

Lecture 1: What is a School Participatory Budget and Why the Community Needs It

Lecture 2: Preparing to Launch SPB

Lecture 3: SPB — Not Always About Money

Lecture 4: Monitoring in SPB

Lecture 5: Tasks of Local Self-Government on the e-DEM Platform

The online course was developed as part of the Swiss-Ukrainian EGAP Program, implemented by East Europe Foundation, and the Council of Europe project “Strengthening Multi-Level Governance and Local Democracy to Support Ukraine’s Recovery,” carried out by the Centre of Expertise for Good Governance under the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, with expert and methodological support from the NGO “Civil Society Development Forum.”

Course Registration: https://courses.zrozumilo.in.ua/courses/course-v1:eef+EEF-065-2+October-2025/about