Marjan Šetinc

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Marjan ŠETINC, born May 15, 1949, Šentlenart (Brežice), Slovenia, is a former MP in the Parliament of Slovenia (1992-1996) and a former ambassador to the Court of St James's, presently working as ambassador in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovenia on multilateral economic policy matters. He is married and has two children.

In 1968 he passed his A-levels at the Atlantic College, Wales, UK, an international sixth form college. He graduated from the Philosophy Faculty of Ljubljana University in 1973 and obtained master's degree in social psychology at London School of Economics in 1977.

From 1974 to 1992 he worked as a full time social science researcher, first with the Slovene Trade Unions Association and from 1980 onwards with the Educational Resarch Institute of Ljubljana University. Research of social processes led him into political activities of the Socialist Youth Party which became the core of Liberal Democracy of Slovenia (LDS), the strongest political party in Slovenia between 1992 to 2004. In the Youth Party he participated in some key activities to prevent hegemonic educational tendencies of the former federal state of Yugoslavia. He was elected an LDS MP in 1992 in his home town Brežice. In the Parliament he acted as a member of three select committees (Foreign Policy; Education, Culture and Sports; Social Affairs) and as a Chairman of the EU Select Committee.

As MP he also chaired the parliamentary group for cooperation with the British Parliament and had been a member and/or head of a number of parliamentary delegations to IPU (Interparliamentary Union), OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), European Parliament, British Parliament, etc.

Between 1998 and 2002 he was acredited as the Ambassador of Slovenia to the Court of St James's and as a non-residential ambassador to Ireland.

In 2002 he was appointed to set up a new Department for International Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Assistance within the Slovenia's MFA, which he headed until 2006, since 2006 he has been appointed to coordinate MFA activities linked to OECD, especially activities of Slovenia to join OECD, and other multilateral economic organisations: WTO, UNECE, UNCTAD... Since 2002 he has participated in the World Summit on Financing for Developent (Monterrey, Mexico, 2002), World Summit on Sustainable Developent (Joannesburg, South Africa, 2002) and CSD 14 (Commission for Sustainable Development, 2005) in New York and has headed the Slovene delegation at a number of ministerial meetings of ministers for development cooperation (Alexandropoulis, Dublin, Maastricht, Brussels).

Memberships: Slovene and international professional associations for sociology, political science, intercultural psychology, between 1989 and 2000 member of the IEA General Assembly (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement), 1996 cofounder of ERRA (European Educational Research Association) and its Executive Council Member till 2001, between 1996 and 2000 member of Slovene Statistics Council, between 1998 and 2002 member of London Diplomatic Association. He is the founder and president of the Slovene Society of Researchers in the School Field, currently he is Secretary General of the Slovene Society for International Relations, is a member of UNICEF Slovenia, Liberal Academy, and is the Atlantic College and LSE alumni member. Since 1985 he has been acting on various professional committees of LDS (Liberal Democracy of Slovenia).

Professional training: Liege University (Belgium), Durham University (England), Enschede University (The Netherlands), University of British Columbia (Canada), Boston College (Boston, US).

Publications: more than 50 articles and publications (recorded in Cobiss). Among others he has in 1989 participated in the expert group which prepared the first UNESCO World Education Report, and in 2005 edited the first Slovenia's Report on International Development Cooperation 2002-2004.

He has organized two international congresses: ISPA 1989 (International Conference of School Psychology), European Conference on Educational Research 1998 and a number of smaller conferences among them also OECD DAC (Development Aid Committee) Statistics Seminar (2003) for 10 EU candidate countries.

The School Field He foundered The School Field, an international educational science journal, which is presently published by Sage Publications, UK, London, under the title International Journal for Theory and Research in Education. He has been a member of a number of executive bodies in social science projects, a member of a number of editorial boards and a participant at numerous international conferences, meetings and seminars. He had given seminars in postgraduate study, as a guest speaker lectured at various universities and institutions (Lancaster University, Strathclyde University, LSE, Kingston University...) and participated in international projects: IAEP (International Assessment of Educational Achievement, ETS Princeton, USA), IEA (International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement): TIMSS, Reading Literacy, Civic Education Project ...

Theory and Research in Education Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in London Listed in Debrett's People of Today, 2000 Millennium Edition