TCN's Tanja Radmilo takes a closer look at curriculum reforms, and what exactly stands behind the lack of progress...
On the 1st of June, 2017, Croats decided to take to the streets once again to protest in favour of the implementation of curriculum reforms after nothing happened for one year. Oh, sorry, not nothing, things actually only got worse and less transparent.
My country reminds me of a weak drug addict in hands of a narco boss called CC, also known as the Catholic Church. And the stuff that is distributed by CC is clearly very good.
All recent research shows that we have younger generations who are more conservative than their parents. These kids go to masses and pray a lot, while their parents smoke, drink and have more sex than their offspring. These kids are totally politically illiterate because of the drug given to them in abundance by CC which makes them very suitable voters or non-voters. I mean, they either do what they are told or they do nothing to keep this system alive. These kids have a very low tolerance level for diversity of any kind. These kids tend to resolve all potential issues in a violent way. 26 years ago, the catechism was introduced in Croatian schools. It was a change at that time and as it was a change in such a sensitive area, such as human resources, only now are we facing the true consequences - and they are huge.
26 years ago the drug use started. You are filled with inputs that do not make sense in the beginning, but if repeated often enough, these dogmatic presumptions become the truth. If somebody uses a date rape drug in your drink every night before you go to bed, in time, it becomes consensual sex. And that is exactly what happened to us.
I cannot believe that in the 21st century we have to take to the streets to discuss the educational reform. This is insane. In 2013, there was an unsuccessful attempt at the introduction of civic education in schools. What happened? Why did it fail? CC's machinery reacted to it very strongly by claiming that some books were very inappropriate for pupils because they might stimulate their sexuality and thus do not make good reading. CC also had a problem with sexual education, and a lot of other stuff.
We are in deep shit and if we want some changes to happen in 26 years time, Croatia has to start with educational reform right now and get out of CC's claws for the sake of the sanity of future generations.
