Let’s Learn about NATO — Making the Case for Curriculum Reform
A comparative study of how eleven Southeast European countries teach NATO in school, presented to North Macedonia’s President, government ministers and education experts at a national online forum — arguing that a country which joined NATO in 2020 should not still be teaching it as a Cold War footnote.
NATO Public Diplomacy Division · Co-Sponsorship Grant for Public Diplomacy Projects
Project at a Glance
Objective & Summary
North Macedonia ratified its NATO accession on 27 March 2020 — in the middle of a global pandemic, a moment GAUSS’s own research frames as a genuine historical marker despite the extraordinary circumstances. Yet the country’s formal history and civic education curricula had not caught up: NATO membership itself was not yet part of the history syllabus, and NATO was absent from Civic Education entirely, at both primary and secondary level.
To make that gap impossible to ignore, GAUSS Institute commissioned two Bitola history teachers to research and compare how NATO is taught across the region, then convened a national forum — bringing together the country’s President, senior ministers, NATO’s own regional representative and education academics — to discuss changing the curriculum.
Eleven education systems compared, drawing on curricula and expert input contributed by history teachers and academics in each country
Across almost every country studied, NATO appears in history class only inside the unit on “the world after WWII” and the bloc division of the Cold War — rarely as an organisation with a modern security, democratic or economic role. Civic education, where it exists, usually lists NATO membership only as a bare goal of Euro-Atlantic integration.
North Macedonia’s own 2020 NATO accession is not yet reflected in the history curriculum at all, and — unlike almost every neighbouring country — NATO is not mentioned anywhere in Civic Education, at either primary or secondary level.
Role & Activities of the GAUSS Institute
- Commissioned and published the comparative study “The North Atlantic Alliance in the Education System of the Republic of North Macedonia and the Countries of Southeast Europe” (November 2020), authored by history teachers Iljo Trajkovski (Gymnasium “Josip Broz Tito” — Bitola) and Aleksandar Veljanoski (Primary School “Goce Delchev” — Bitola).
- Built a cross-border research network of history teachers and academics across the region who contributed curricula, textbooks and professional insight from their own countries to the study.
- Organised a national online forum (21 December 2020, via Zoom, working languages Macedonian and English with simultaneous translation), inviting the President of the Republic of North Macedonia, the Ministers of Defence and of Education and Science, the Head of the NATO Liaison Office in Skopje, the presidents of the Euro-Atlantic Councils of Croatia and Bulgaria, and academics from Skopje, Bitola, Belgrade and Štip.
- Structured the forum around the study’s findings — a grand opening, a panel on Euro-Atlantic values and social challenges, and a panel on Euro-Atlantic values and the educational process, moderated by Prof. Dr. Marjan Gjurovski, Vice Rector of the University “St. Kliment Ohridski” — Bitola.
- Produced a promotional video and infographics distilling the study’s key findings, and live-broadcast and published the forum online.
- Published the analysis and forum outputs in Macedonian and English for educational authorities and the public.
Outputs (Deliverables)
- A published comparative study of NATO content in the school curricula of eleven Southeast European countries, in Macedonian and English.
- A national online forum on NATO and Euro-Atlantic values in education, bringing together the country’s most senior education and defence stakeholders with NATO’s own regional representative.
- A promotional video and infographics summarising the study’s key findings for public and media audiences.
- Published forum recordings and materials for educational authorities, teachers and the public.
Outcomes
The forum’s guest list — drafted to include the President of the Republic, the Ministers of Defence and Education, and NATO’s own Head of Liaison Office in Skopje — was itself a statement about how seriously GAUSS wanted the curriculum question taken. Whether or not every invited figure ultimately took part, the project succeeded in putting a concrete, evidence-based recommendation for curriculum change directly in front of the officials with the power to act on it, rather than leaving the argument at the level of a general appeal.
Significance
Public diplomacy projects often stop at raising awareness; this one aimed at the institution that actually shapes what an entire generation learns — the curriculum itself. By showing, country by country, that the regional norm was to teach NATO as Cold War history and nothing more, and that North Macedonia’s own curriculum hadn’t even caught up with its own 2020 accession, GAUSS turned a vague sense that “schools should teach more about NATO” into a specific, comparative, citable case for change.
Taken together with Children@Game.Edu.NATO, these two projects form a coherent two-step public diplomacy campaign: first listen to what young people actually think, then take the gap that reveals straight to the people who write the textbooks. It is a rare example, in GAUSS’s portfolio, of a single donor relationship deliberately built across two consecutive projects toward one long-term policy goal.
This project was implemented under a Co-Sponsorship Grant from the NATO Public Diplomacy Division. The content of this page reflects the work of GAUSS Institute and does not necessarily represent the official position of NATO.