Protesters will gather on Thursday in front of Parliament and the government building.
It has been almost two weeks since large protests which gathered about 50,000 people in several Croatian cities in support of comprehensive curricular reform and its leader Boris Jokić. Although he and the entire expert working group have demanded to be dismissed due to political pressure, Education Minister Predrag Šustar has not responded to requests of the “Croatia Can Do Better” initiative which organized the protests, reports Index.hr on June 13, 2016.
Therefore, the initiative will organize another protest at 6 pm on Thursday at St. Mark’s Square, where Parliament and the government building are located. According to the organizers, they will protest because the Minister and the government have not done anything in the meantime to fulfil the demands of protesters.
According to information from the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, Minister Šustar has not yet made a decision to dismiss the expert working group or any other decision with regards to the curricular reform, although the reform will be completely suspended on 15 June.
Eli Pijaca Plavšić from the Croatia Can Do Better initiative said that there are two key demands. “One has been submitted to Parliament and is waiting to be put on the agenda, and that is the rejection of the conclusions of the Parliamentary Committee on Education, which decided to add ten additional members to the expert working group. Our second demand was for Parliament to adopt a resolution on education that will define education as a national priority”, said Plavšić.
“The government is unstable, and it is difficult to plan activities at this time. We are anxious and unhappy, but Croatia very much needs this reform”, said Ivana Zanze, executive director of the Roda Association, which also took part in the protests.
The president of the largest school union, the Trade Union of Croatian Teachers, Sanja Šprem said that a meeting of the organizing committee would be held today and that further information about the protest on Thursday would then be announced.
