7 March 2022 - The Varaždin Secondary Vocational School's Protection Workshop is one of 34 projects in Central Europe nominated for the SozialMarie 2022 best social innovation prize, Varaždin County said on Monday.

The Protection Workshop is among 275 shortlisted projects. It is competing with projects from Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the €15,000 first prize, the €10,000 second prize, the €5,000 third prize, or €2,000 for the next 12 places.

The Protection Workshop is a joint project of the school, the county, and the Croatian Employment Service that was launched in 2006 to enable the employment of persons with disabilities or reduced work capacity, the first such project in Croatia.

The workshop makes work uniforms, protective clothing, chair covers, bedding, bags, backpacks, textile and leather accessories. In 15 years it has employed 58 persons, including 30 with disabilities.

Each year SozialMarie awards successful and innovative projects, representing a sign of quality in effective social innovation. The winners will be announced on 1 May.

This is the first European prize for social innovation that has been given since 2004 for 15 of the best projects. SozialMarie is also a public platform for making connections, cooperating and exchanging experiences between Central European projects.

May the 23rd, 2020 - Another mistake in the educational system showing that only gymnasium students are valuable to our society. What about vocational students?

In the official document for all highschools in Varaždin County, only gymnasium graduate students will have co-financed or fully financed tickets for bus and train transport for all of their obligatory matura exams.

In other words, graduate students from vocational schools will have to pay for a ticket if they want to take the most important exams in high school. They will only have co-financed or financed tickets for their practical lectures and defending their dissertation.

TCN received a message from one graduate student of the Medical High School in Varaždin, saying he would like to stay anonymous, but he wants his voice to be heard by many.

"The school year 2019/2020"

The main sentence in all elections is: "We take care of education, the most important thing for us is our children, students, the world stays with the young." What are we talking about today? We are graduates of the most turbulent years of schooling, from the strike itself to the coronavirus pandemic, because we didn't see our friends for months, we couldn't study normally, nor could we live normally. You're talking about psychological help for our parents and us, but we're not entitled to free transportation for our matura exams because we're studying for a vocational profession? Are we less valuable, then? Are you talking about having the right to normal schooling?

If schooling is normal, then we're talking about going to school from Monday to Saturday, with 1001 assignments, learning about things we will never need. We're students of a medical school, and we have state matura subjects in the programme for the 1st and 2nd year, and we go to school for five years and then to be able to enroll in college, we need Croatian, mathematics and a foreign language that we don't have at the same college later on?

We're obliged to come to the matura exams, but we don't have equal rights like everyone else? How exactly do gymnasium students differ from vocational students? Have you never been taught that the rules apply to everyone or to no one? We learn about justice and fairness, and in real life, you're showing us more and more that that is worth nothing. Thank you to all politicians and the entire education system of the Republic of Croatia for never forgetting to take their large monthly salaries (the main thanks for that goes to Minister Divjak). Still, they do NOT provide us students with our formal education. Thank you to everyone who once again showed us how wonderful it is to live in the Republic of Croatia, where everything is perfect. Thank you!"

This is a letter full of emotion from one graduate high school student, who is, at this very moment, one voice among thousands. We live in a crazy time, that's for sure. But should this really affect students this much who are in maybe the biggest panic in their life?

For more on education in Croatia, as well as the struggles of vocational students, follow our lifestyle page.