May 30, 2023 - A survey conducted among Croatian high school graduates shows that a fifth of them aspire to study abroad.

As Index/Večernji List writes, Croatia lost as many as 55,341 students in primary and secondary schools in ten years. At the beginning of the current school year, it had 453,867 primary and secondary school students. Many younger children have moved abroad with their families, and many older high school students see their future mainly in the EU member states where they want to study or work.

On the other hand, international students are an exception at Croatian universities, and even when some come to study, for example, medicine in Zagreb or Split, they return to their countries after their studies.

Neither the Pandemic nor the war in Ukraine have shaken the desire of senior high school students to move abroad. Moreover, the aspirations of high school students to study abroad have increased. In the spring of 2022, almost a fifth of high school graduates (18%) expressed their intention to study abroad, while 15% of high school graduates did so during the Pandemic.

Survey on educational mobility during the Pandemic

This is shown by the survey of Ph.D. Teo Matković from the Institute for Social Research (IDIZ) in Zagreb, which he conducted with his colleague Josip Šabić and colleague Margareta Gregurović from the Institute for Migration and Nationalities.

Matković presented the research "Persistence of educational mobility and migration intentions among high school students during the COVID-19 pandemic" at the recent congress of the Croatian Sociological Society in Split, and his work and that of his colleagues will soon be published in the International Journal of Sociology of Education.

Matković and colleagues wanted to examine whether the difficulties caused by the Pandemic affected the international migration intention of Croatian high school students and their aspirations to study abroad.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated News section.