SOUTH EAST EUROPEAN UNIVERSITY RECEIVES THE ORDER OF MERIT FOR MACEDONIA BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC

The President of the Republic of Macedonia, Gjorge Ivanov awarded “The Order of Merit for Macedonia”to the South East European Universityon Friday 18 November, in a solemn ceremony.
Ten years of operation of a university such as South East European University is a very short period, but in the context of the dynamics of development of events, the way of its founding and mission of this higher education institution, the impact that SEEU has on higher education network in Republic of Macedonia, for fulfilling social needs and establishment of distinct and visible values and comparable with modern trends and standards – gains historic dimension, leaves visible traces in the world of knowledge, says Rector, Prof. Dr. Zamir Dika. He also stressed the role and unconditional support of the international community - the U.S., EU, ​​Council of Europe and OSCE in the realization of the idea of ​​establishing this University, which continues to be open to young people from Macedonia and the region and beyond. The South East European University became the first university in Macedonia that applied the ECTS credit system and applied active and interactive modern teaching methods. At the same time, all this contributed to the transfer of students in various European and American universities, offering equal opportunities for employment and training for those staff who had graduated from these universities.
SEEU as a not-for-profit University with public interest was founded to solve the problem of higher education in Albanian language as a powerful promoter of inter-ethnic understanding, with access to multilingual and multicultural teaching and research and to develop curricula with international and European perspectives.
Harmonization of standards and valorisation of European knowledge with the needs and time requirements is also a successful proof for the University, so this represents a great responsibility for this university to go on to be the leader of the values ​​and educational and academic standards in region.
“Indeed it is a great pleasure to have cooperation with the most prestigious local, regional and international of the universities, and this is essential to the success of our University. We understand this as a mission and obligation to educate qualified, well-informed and cultured generations," says Rector Dika.

The former EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Olli Rehn, by giving his support to SEEU said: “The South East European University is the most European creature of the Western Balkans.”
As well, we want to mention the conclusions of the European Universities Association team (EUA/IEP) – Institutional Evaluation Programme: “South East European University is clearly a model university for Macedonia and the region,” or during their follow-up visit, it was said that “The South East European University can serve as a model in the region for the overall operations and prospective which it has created.”
OECD/IMHE Feasibility Study Report, June 2004 stressed that “SEEU has met, indeed exceeded, its stated aims of contributing significantly to the solution of the problem of Albanian language higher education, providing a carefully chosen range of teaching programmes in a broad international and European perspective and ensuring a multi-cultural approach to teaching.”
The University managed to bring together in one place, people of different cultures in building a flexible and positive attitude in social interaction. Intercultural dialogue and tolerance, in this university, increasingly are seen as the future perspectives of European integration. In this context, however, comes in place the option of enhancing the European identity, within the spirit of tolerance, multi-ethnicity, Multicultural and multi-legalism. This proves without a doubt that the South East European University was and remains a typical example of dialogue, tolerance and interethnic understanding.
“These are our values​​ that will lead us closer to Europe and precisely because of these values we are ​​becoming an increasingly inseparable part of it," say the leaders of the university.