ZAGREB, 23 May 2022 - The Education Ministry's official, Nandor Čapo, on Monday said that 16 ethnic minorities in Croatia exercise the right of education in their mother tongue, which covers education ranging from pre-school to secondary school and this year over 10,000 pupils are included in these programmes.

Of the 22 ethnic minorities in Croatia, 16 are guaranteed this human right of education in their mother tongue, Čapo told an international conference entitled "Inter-cultural education in minority languages and script."

He underscored that interculturality is a constituent part of Croatian society and that the Constitution recognises 22 national minorities who enrich the country's linguistic, historical and cultural diversity.

Attending the conference, UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues Fernand de Varennes underscored the necessity to nurture minority languages, particularly from the pedagogic aspect because children learn better in their mother tongue.

The two-day conference organised by the Serb National Council (SNV) is being held in Zagreb for representatives of ethnic minorities and teachers who teach minority languages.

SNV president and Member of Parliament Milorad Pupovac assessed that multiculturalism and interculturalism were functioning in some Croatian communities regardless of language differences.

In some areas such as Vukovar, he added, unfortunately, there is still a dominant approach in which cooperation, exchange of experience and use of joint historical foundations and heritage, is not the usual practice to provide citizens rights.

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