April the 8th, 2024 – Croatian high school student numbers are the lowest in the European Union. It seems however that drastic changes are afoot.
As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, one of the goals of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan, presented back in 2021, is to introduce full-day school and increase the coverage of students in high school programmes compared to vocational ones. This would see them rise from the existing 30 percent to 40 percent. The competent ministry plans to increase Croatian high school student numbers, both because the percentage lags behind the EU average, but also, as they stated, because of the high dropout rate of those who enrol in them.
About 30 percent of students in Croatia attend high school programmes with the purpose of continuing their education, which is among the lowest in comparison to the average of EU Member States. Across the rest of the EU, the average is 52 percent, and vocational education programmes are attended by 70 percent of students, which is one of the highest share of students at the level of vocational education in Europe, explained the Ministry of Science and Education. The situation is better here in the City of Zagreb, where 40 percent of high school students are already enrolled in various types of high school programmes.
What is expected of the founders is to expand the offer of high school education programmes in their respective counties, while at the same time optimising the offer of supplementary vocational education programmes.
Vocational schools that educate students for various specific professions that are on the list of surpluses, in agreement with their founder, will be able to ask the ministry to become mixed because they will also organise high school programmes, according to Večernji list.
As the Ministry of Science and Education announced to Srednja.hr, a public call for the founders of secondary schools will soon be opened. They will then be able to apply for projects with the aim of investing in the construction, reconstruction and equipping of school buildings in order to increase the coverage of high school programmes.
