Plenković: The Action Plan for Implementing Education Reform is Very Precisely Elaborated

Prime Minister Andrej Plenković stated on Thursday that the Action Plan for Implementing Education Reform, which he received today from the Special Expert Committee, was adopted by consensus and that pilot projects will commence in the next school year based on it.

I would like to thank the rector of the University of Zadar, Dijana Vican, and all other members of this Committee who, in accordance with our agreement from July of this year, completed the work on the Action Plan. The document they provided me today is very precisely elaborated with measures that need to be taken in a number of areas, said Plenković at a press conference.

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He noted that this document was agreed upon and adopted by consensus with a few minor differing opinions from certain members of the SPC, but globally speaking, it is a document that all members of the Special Expert Committee can fully support.

The idea is for education in Croatia to be a topic around which we build the broadest possible consensus, that people who deserve to be involved due to their professional and academic qualifications, as well as the fact that they belong to different political options and different worldviews, participate in this process, said Plenković.

The essence of our future engagement in implementing the Strategy for Education, Science, and Technology will focus on making the topic a kind of positive competition among those who want to contribute more, rather than a topic that will create divisions in Croatian society, added the Prime Minister.

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He stated that the common goal of the partners in the parliamentary majority is to start pilot projects in schools at the beginning of the next school year, in order to test the new educational program. To achieve this, it is necessary to implement the measures contained in the Action Plan, carry out a certain procedure at the level of the Expert Working Group, and all preparations so that individual schools are able to experimentally start with these programs.

These programs will, in the long run, prepare our youth to be competitive, to connect the educational system with the real needs of the labor market, to ensure that identity issues, value systems, Croatian history, Croatian language, Croatian culture, and also broad general knowledge that makes our new generations competitive in the European and global labor market are clearly rooted, said Prime Minister Plenković, concluding that changes in the Committee will only be known after they are agreed upon among partners.

Divjak Does Not Give Up on Education Reform

Minister of Science and Education Blaženka Divjak thanked the Special Expert Committee on Thursday for drafting and largely agreeing on the proposal of the Action Plan for implementing the educational strategy, which they submitted to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković today, and she stated that she would not give up on education reform.

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Divjak stated that she herself had not seen the proposal of the Action Plan earlier, and that the Ministry would study it and respond to it.

– Regarding the implementation of education reform, my team and I are working on it and we will continue to do so, regardless of the broader context, to prepare it for next year, and we will not give up on that, she stated.

Divjak emphasized that the reconstruction of the Special Expert Committee and the method of work and selection of the Expert Working Group will be discussed in relation to the coalition agreement between HNS and HDZ.