ZAGREB, December 9, 2018 - Croatia has the best results among all the EU member-states when it comes to reducing early school leaving in the age cohort 18-24, however, its results in the other five benchmarks are not so good, according to the findings of the European Commission's publication "Education and Training Monitor".

In 2017, Croatia's dropout rate was 3.1%, which was in line with the EU target to have dropout rates throughout the Union below 10%. Last year, that average rate in the EU stood at 10.6%.

In terms of the benchmark called "Early childhood education and care from age 4 to starting age of compulsory primary education, Croatia legs behind the EU target of 95%, given that 75.1% of Croatian children in that age cohort were covered by early education.

Education Minister Blaženka Divjak, who attended the presentation of the publication, said that her department in cooperation with other ministries was investing efforts to bring Croatia closer to that target.

Stefaan Hermans, Director of Policy Strategy and Evaluation in the Directorate-General for Education, Youth, Sport and Culture at the European Commission, said that investing into education means investing into the future.

The publication reads that "Croatia’s spending on education and training remains at the EU average, with a strong focus on primary and tertiary education. The percentage of GDP spent on education and training in 2016 increased slightly by 0.1 percentage points to 4.8 % (EU average 4.7 %) and stands just above the pre-crisis high in 2008."

In Croatia, the proportion of 15-year-olds underachieving in Reading, Maths and Science was still worse than in the EU on average.

When it comes to adult participation in learning (age 25-64), Croatia's rate was a mere 2.3%, as against the EU average rate of 10.9%, and the benchmark is 15%.

For more on education in Croatia, visit over dedicated section.

ZAGREB, December 5, 2018 - The project "Using synergy to achieve excellence in the research and development of detectors, sensors and electronics" is the first successfully completed structural project in Croatia, finished in a record-short period of six months, which was marked with a ceremony inaugurating the Centre for Detectors, Sensors and Electronics at Zagreb's Ruđer Bošković Institute (IRB) on Wednesday.

The primary goal of the project was to promote, in a synergy with the project "Expanding Potential in Particle and Radiation Detectors, Sensors and Electronics in Croatia" (PaRaDeSEC), financed within the Horizon 2020 programme, the IRB's existing research infrastructure for the research, development and testing of detectors, sensors and related electronics, said IRB director David Matthew Smith.

He noted that this was the first successfully completed project in Croatia that was financed as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds in the amount of 1.5 million kuna.

Smith said the project was of great importance for the further planning of investments in science through the Operational Programme "Competitiveness and Cohesion 2014-2020".

Science and Education Minister Blaženka Divjak, who attended the inauguration ceremony, said that promoting excellence and innovation was one of her ministry's four important strategic goals in the current period. She noted that "promotion of excellence... seems easy on paper, but the required change of the system actually requires everyone involved in that system to change."

The minister said the project was a good example of how the Horizon 2020 programme, which is mostly oriented to science and excellence, can be linked with cohesion policies, which help develop countries that lag behind in any sector.

She thanked the project team, headed by Neven Šoić, for identifying that link and making it possible to complete the project in record-short time.

The project has made it possible to procure a large number of instruments important for research, as well as remodelling laboratories, thus creating controlled conditions of cleanliness, temperature and air humidity, improving the stability of electric systems and reducing the level of electronic noise, said Šoić.

For the latest science news from Croatia, click here.

ZAGREB, October 16, 2018 - The European Commission said in the Education and Training Monitor 2018, released on Tuesday, that Croatia had launched ambitious reforms in education and training after a period when progress was stalled by political disagreement.

ZAGREB, October 8, 2018 - The application called "Šer - Školski e-Rudnik" (Share - School e-Mine in an unofficial translation) has been recently launched by the Science and Education Ministry in a bid to make a set of statistical data available at a single site.

ZAGREB, October 2, 2018 - Science and Education Minister Blaženka Divjak on Tuesday rejected claims that the contents of report cards were changed because of the Istanbul Convention, saying that this was an "ugly lie," and underscored that report cards were changed long before the Istanbul Convention was ratified, during the term of minister Pavo Barišić when the state-secretary was Hrvoje Slezak, who was a member of the presidency of the HRAST party.

ZAGREB, September 3, 2018 - A new school year is beginning on Monday for 472,000 elementary and secondary school students during which over 8,000 of them will be included in the School for Life experimental programme being launched in 48 elementary and 26 secondary schools.

ZAGREB, September 2, 2018 - Croatian People's Party (HNS) leader Ivan Vrdoljak told a news conference on Sunday, ahead of the start of the new school year and the curricular reform, that the reform had been delayed for 20 years and that its launch on Monday, September 3, was a result of "the synergy between politics and expertise".

ZAGREB, August 25, 2018 - Science and Education Minister Blaženka Divjak said on Friday that her ministry was ready for the new school year and the launch of the "School for Life" pilot project in 74 schools.

ZAGREB, July 20, 2018 - High school students from 67 countries gathered in Zagreb for the World Schools Debating Championship in a battle of minds in critical thinking and speaking, the Croatian Debate Society, which organised the competition in Zagreb, reported on Friday.

ZAGREB, July 18, 2018 - A grant agreement worth nearly 200 million kuna from EU funds, earmarked for the purchase of a mega computer which will be used for top scientific research and data collection, was signed in the Science and Education Ministry on Wednesday.