“Recovery and development are not possible if one invests only in tourism and the services sector. It is necessary to also invest in young people and education,” Croatian member of the European Parliament, Željana Zovko of the HDZ party, who organised the conference, said at the event.
“Young people are the ones to take Croatia and Europe towards technological progress. The key message of this conference is for young people to stay here and develop their talents,” she said, calling for equal education opportunities both for those living in urban areas and those living in rural areas or on islands.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution in 2021 on the European education area, which says that the teaching profession is in a crisis because there are significant differences in education in the member-states in terms of working conditions, pay, assessment and professional requirements.
Teachers should be paid adequately for their work and students should be at the centre of the learning process, the document says, underlining the importance of learning foreign languages, notably English, as well as mass open online courses as a necessary element in promoting additional training and retraining.
Addressing the event via video link, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Mariya Gabriel said that the Recovery and Resilience Plan has the potential to become a lever for introducing a greener, more digital and more inclusive system of education in the EU.
Ina 2016, Split-Dalmatia County established a centre of excellence that currently has 430 children and 109 mentors in four basic programmes, and an additional 2,100 children in three extracurricular programmes with another 300 mentors, the centre’s head, Ivica Zelić, said.
“We want to establish a system of support for talent development and make what we, in Split-Dalmatia County, are doing a national model,” Zelić said.
In cooperation with Lika-Senj County, the county plans to build a centre of excellence campus in Nova Sela in the hinterland of Omiš.
That campus will be the first of its kind in Southeast Europe and it will be a meeting place for excellent students not only from Croatia but from all over this part of Europe, said Split-Dalmatia County head Blaženko Boban.
