ZAGREB, July 25, 2019 – The Preporod school union has collected 2,980 teachers’ signatures calling for a one-year postponement of the application of the new “School for Life” programme, the union told a press conference on Thursday.
Signatures were collected from June 25 to July 5 in 154 elementary and secondary schools, union head Željko Stipić said, adding that the only thing that would be fair to children and their parents would be to postpone the “School for life” for year.
“It is without doubt that teachers are not prepared for the ‘School for Life’ and that there has been insufficient education, there are problems with equipping schools and different working conditions in our schools will have serious repercussions,” Stipić said.
He announced that the union would present the petition to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and called for meeting with him.
He added that the number of signatures would have been higher had they not been collected at an awkward time and had teachers not feared repercussions.
“A lot of people employed in schools, at least 5,000, have not yet accessed the ‘Loomen’ platform intended to prepare them for the ‘School for Life’,” he said, adding that it had been said earlier in the year that the platform was not compulsory.
He recalled a recent initiative that the Agency for Education to be included in training teachers, which the unions have welcomed but believe it has come too late.
It is unbelievable that in the middle of July, literally at the ‘eleventh hour’, the agency is getting involved and that it has not had anything to do with the reform until now, he added.
He called for the frontal application of the “School for Life” to be seriously re-examined so that the idea of a quality transformation of the school system is not compromised.
More news about the curriculum reform can be found in the Lifestyle section.
