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Innovating Education in Croatia a Knowledge-Based Society

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Innovating Education in Croatia a Knowledge-Based Society EDUCATIONFORUM INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Reforms that are raising the quality of IT in Croatian science and education aim to create Innovating Education in Croatia a knowledge-based society. Dragan Primorac o make Croatian science and education Computer Driving License the most competitive in Eastern Europe (ECDL). Courses on informa- Video-conferencing Tby 2010, the Croatian Ministry of Sci- tion-communication technolo- for education. ence, Education, and Sport (the Ministry) has gies are available, as well as undertaken major reforms in the past 4 years interactive education content (1), to develop information technology (IT) as for high schools in mathemat- IMAGE FPO the essential infrastructure for a knowledge- ics, physics, biology, and chem- based society (2). Since 199/3, IT projects have istry. In a step toward computer- improved the quality of learning and teaching ization of educational resources and have created equal learning opportunities and records, undergraduates for all students (3). As a result, primary and sec- use the Information System of ondary school students can access educational Higher Education Institutions content from their homes or dormitories. The (ISVU) IT system (www.srce. infrastructure for implementing new technolo- hr/english/isvu.html) to sign gies in the education system has been devel- up for exams via the Internet, oped and maintained by the Croatian Academic check teaching and exam schedules, access be embraced with traditional education as of and Research Network—CARNet (www.car- records, and receive other related services. equal importance. However, a serious obstacle net.hr). CARNet connects all universities and ISVU has been introduced in 82 public institu- is the lack of adequately trained staff. To over- research institutions in Croatia with access tions in Croatia, and currently contains data on come this, in the last 4 years, 20,000 employees speed ranging from 2 Mbp/s to 10 Gbp/s. It ~80% (around 135,000) of all undergraduates. in the education sector have completed ECDL also connects to academic institutions in Bos- The e-Matica system, implemented in training. Future efforts must address fear of nia and Herzegovina through cooperation with 2008, is a database of primary and second- new technologies and lack of motivation. BIHARNET, the Academic and Research Net- ary educational institutions, their employees, Other small countries that have made heavy work of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and through- students, programs, and activities. It contains investments in science and education (such as out Europe via GÉANT, the pan-European data around 30,000,000 records. E-Matica serves Israel, Ireland, and Finland) have shown how communication network (4). CARNet is free as the base for the Education Management a small country can find an efficient strategy for all authorized users and provides each with Information System (6), a database of stan- to become globally competitive. As Danish a unique, electronic identifier. dardized data from pedagogical documenta- Crown Prince Christian VIII said in 1813 [(8), CARNet equipped all scientific and aca- tion and education statistics. E-Matica is also p. 242)], when the budget for education was demic libraries, 650 school libraries, 700 used in implementation of free textbook distri- increased despite Denmark’s having declared branch elementary schools (of 1367 in total), bution through schools. bankruptcy following war with England, “If we all secondary school staff rooms (391 in total), Starting in 2010, criteria for general sec- now become foolish, we may say goodbye to and all high school dormitories (54 in total) in ondary school students and 4-year vocational the idea of surviving as a state.” Croatia with computer equipment and Internet students to attend higher education institutions access (5). This includes a room-based video- will include the State Matura Exam (SME). References and Notes conference system, with 34 teleconferencing Currently under development is the National 1. Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (MSES), Sci- ence and Technology Policy 2006–2010 (MSES, Zagreb, classrooms in 15 cities. Since the 2006–07 Information System for Application at Higher Croatia, 2006). school year, 280 of 391 secondary schools Education Institutions, in which data from 2. D. Primorac, Public Service Rev. Eur. Union 14, 153 (2007). have been equipped with SmartBoards, e-Matica, ISVU, SME results, and elsewhere 3. E. Marshall, “Croatia: Aiming high”; http://blogs.sci- encemag.org/newsblog/2008/07/croatia-aiming.html/. touch-sensitive whiteboards, on which a com- will be used to create student ranking lists. 4. M. Petrovecki, V. Paar, D. Primorac, Croat. Med. J. 47, puter’s video output can be displayed. Efforts 809 (2006). are focused on using Web-based IT to con- Benefits and Challenges 5. D. Primorac, EMBO Rep. 9, 596 (2008). 6. MSES, Education Sector Development Plan 2005–2010 nect remote parts of Croatia, such as its archi- Investment in development of IT in edu- (MSES, Zagreb, Croatia, 2005). pelago of 1000 islands. Croatia’s “e-islands” cation and research totaled €133,300,000 7. National scores for 2007–08 were analyzed in schools project connects 21 island schools via a vid- (~$184,400,000) over the last 5 years. This that had had computers for student use for 1 to 4 years. eoconference system (see figure). amounted to ~2% of the Ministry’s budget per A significant correlationwas obtained between the num- ber of years computers were available in schools and the To promote computer literacy, users have year. Although the largest investments were in national exam scores in chemistry, informatics, and phys- access to electronic content via the “Nikola hardware, the fastest growing investments have ics. However, a more systematic investigation of these Tesla” National Portal for Distance Learning been in software and education. relations is necessary. 8. Croatian Heritage Foundation, Hrvatski iseljenički zbornik (lms.carnet.hr), which includes the European The Croatian government believes that pro- 2007 (Croatian emigrant almanac 2007), (Croatian Heri- viding access to information via the Internet tage Foundation, Zagreb, Croatia, 2007), 368 pp. K T leads to higher-quality education (7), especially 9. I thank Z. Stanic, D. Schwarz, Z. Paldi, V. Mornar, A. K Ministry of Science, Education, and Sports of the Repub- Marušicć, A. Mišak, I. Bošnjak, and. D. Bonacci. T lic of Croatia, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. E-mail: dragan. in geographically isolated or economically [email protected] underdeveloped areas. Remote learning should 10.1126/science.1167183 CREDIT: 1650 26 JUNE 2009 VOL 324 SCIENCE www.sciencemag.org .
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