This NECE Campus session introduced “Improve Your School” as a practical way for young people in South Moravia to experience democracy with real consequences. Through student-led participatory budgeting, pupils propose and vote on concrete improvements to their school environment – from relaxation zones to equipment for learners with special needs – working with real money and clear constraints. Dagmar Peřinová from the South Moravian Agency for Public Innovation (JINAG) described the programme as a “living laboratory” where students learn budgeting, planning, argumentation and cooperation while shaping the spaces in which they spend every day.

The webinar traced how this work grew from a small pilot to a regional initiative. In 2023–2024, six schools ran participatory budgets, resulting in 58 student projects and over 3,100 voting students; by 2024–2025, 58 schools were involved, with 60 separate participatory budgets, 318 projects and 32,001 voting students. The model now reaches both secondary and primary schools, with each school receiving a dedicated budget, access to an online platform for project and budget management, and a step-by-step methodology that covers project design, campaigning, voting and implementation. Former deputy governor Lukáš Dubec underlined that this is treated as an investment in young people’s capacity to cooperate, deliberate and follow through – skills that will shape how they participate in their municipalities later on.

A central thread in the discussion was the effect on school culture and on teachers. As participatory budgeting cycles unfold, teachers shift from being mainly transmitters of knowledge towards facilitators who help students frame problems, ask better questions and navigate disagreement. The programme’s training encourages coordinators to think beyond grades as the main motivator and to draw instead on competition, pride, experience and shared achievement. Alongside “Improve Your School”, JINAG is building further opportunities for youth participation, such as HackaTeen – a 20-hour challenge where student councils work on real urban issues and present their solutions at events like the Smart City Expo in Barcelona. For civic educators, the session offered a clear, transferable example of how participatory tools can turn abstract citizenship lessons into long-term practice.