National Development Strategy Croatia 2030 Policy Note: Education and Skills July 2019 Co-financed by the Technical Assistance of the Operational Program “Competitiveness and Cohesion” from the European Regional Development Fund Acknowledgements This policy note was prepared in the context of the Reimbursable Advisory Services Agreement “Sup- port for Establishing the System for Strategic Planning and Development Management and for Preparing the 2030 National Development Strategy”. The core World Bank team was led by Donato De Rosa (Lead Economist, Team Leader), Josip Funda (Senior Economist, co-Team Leader), and Catalin Pauna (former Team Leader) and included Stanka Crvik Oreskovic (Project Coordinator) and Bogdanka Krtinic (Program Assistant). The team worked under the guidance of Arup Banerji (Country Director), Elisabetta Capannelli (Country Manager) and Gallina Andronova Vincelette (Practice Manager). Preparation of the policy note Education and Skills was led by Diego Ambasz (Senior Education Spe- cialist). The main authors of the policy note are Anita Amaral Gurgel (Consultant), Ninoslav Šćukanec Schmidt (Consultant), Domagoj Račić (Consultant) and Teo Matkovic (Consultant), with contributions from Lucia Brajkovic (Consultant), Višnja Rajić (Consultant), and Sandra Antulić (Consultant). Prepa- ration of the policy note was guided by Harry Anthony Patrinos as Practice Manager of the Education global practice for Europe and Central Asia of the World Bank Group, and Lars M. Sondergaard as Program Leader, Education, Health, Social Protection and Jobs European Union Member States. The policy note team thanks the following individuals and organizations in Croatia: • the Ministry of Regional Development and EU Funds for overall coordination and guidance, especially Ana Odak, the Assistant Minister, and her team; • the Ministry of Science and Education for meetings and consultations that have informed the policy note; • the Ministry of Labour and Pension System for meetings and consultations that have informed the policy note. Note This report is a product of the staff of the World Bank Group. The findings, interpretations, and conclu- sions expressed in the report do not necessarily reflect the views of The World Bank Group, its Board of Executive Directors, or the governments they represent. The World Bank Group does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this work, which is drawn from multiple external sources. Nothing herein shall constitute, or be considered to be, a limitation upon or waiver of the privileges and immun- ities of The World Bank Group, all of which are specifically reserved. Education and skills 2 Contents 1 Overview of Global Trends and Societal Challenges ........................................................................... 5 2 Overview of Developments in Croatia ................................................................................................. 9 2.1 Early Childhood Education and Care: Croatia lags behind the EU in access to ECEC and inequity is a concern ....................................................................................................................... 10 2.2 Primary and Secondary Education: Attainment rates are high, but nearly half of the poorest students are functionally innumerate .............................................................................................. 13 2.3 VET, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning: Participation in VET is high, but graduates face high unemployment ........................................................................................................................ 19 2.4 Higher Education and Science: Croatia has some of the lowest HE attainment and graduate employability rates in the EU and its performance in science is modest ....................................... 27 3 Assessment of the Main Developmental Challenges and Opportunities for Croatia ......................... 37 3.1 Main challenges: ...................................................................................................................... 37 3.1.1 Early Childhood Education and Care: Inadequate physical, human and financial resources hinder expansion of pre-primary education ............................................................ 37 3.1.2 Primary and Secondary Education: Low instruction time, outdated curricula, inefficient spending and limited use of public sector management approaches contribute to poor learning outcomes ................................................................................................................................. 38 3.1.3 VET, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning: outdated VET programs disconnected from the needs of employers and low emphasis on adult education exacerbate skills mismatches .............................................................................................................................. 41 3.1.4 Higher Education and Science: Ineffective quality assurance and monitoring, incomplete reform of public research institutions, and limited capacity of and cooperation between the public and private sectors contribute to lackluster performance ......................... 42 3.2 Opportunities for Development: ............................................................................................... 46 3.2.1 Early Childhood Education and Care: Quality of ECEC in general is thought to be adequate and demand for services is high ............................................................................... 46 3.2.2 Primary and Secondary Education: Availability of EU funds to move curricula reform forward and smaller student cohorts that put less pressure on infrastructure and human resources ................................................................................................................................. 47 3.2.3 VET, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning: High participation in VET and the foundations of CROQF to help guide the sector ..................................................................... 47 3.2.4 Higher Education and Science: Existence of a national plan for equity in HE, CROQF as reference and data collected for and experience with EU funding, and availability of ESIF funding and public sector prevalence in this segment that could facilitate changes ............... 49 4 4. Prioritized Policy Recommendations ............................................................................................. 53 4.1 Primary and Secondary Education: Optimize the school network to improve efficiency and allow for increased instruction time and prioritize equity and quality-enhancing measures ......... 53 Education and skills 3 4.2 Policy Recommendations for Early Childhood Education and Care; VET, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning; Higher Education and Science ................................................................. 60 4.2.1 Short-term (1-3 years) .................................................................................................... 60 4.2.2 Medium-term (4-7 years) ............................................................................................... 71 4.2.3 Long-term (8-10 years) .................................................................................................. 76 5 Cross-cutting issues and their implications for policy ....................................................................... 79 6 Proposed implementation roadmap .................................................................................................... 80 6.1 Early Childhood Education and Care ....................................................................................... 80 6.2 Primary and Secondary Education ........................................................................................... 82 6.3 VET, Adult Education and Lifelong Learning ......................................................................... 85 6.4 Higher Education ..................................................................................................................... 87 6.5 Science ..................................................................................................................................... 90 7 Proposals for strategic (“Flagship”) projects ...................................................................................... 94 7.1 ECEC Governance and Teacher Policies ................................................................................. 94 7.2 Greater efficiency, institutional capacity and quality in order to improve learning outcomes 95 7.3 Better monitoring of education processes through the use of technology – EduHR ................ 96 7.4 Revamping of 3-year VET track .............................................................................................. 97 7.5 Establishing new and supporting the work of existing regional centers of competence in vocational education in priority sectors of vocational education ................................................... 98 7.6 Adult Education Quality Assurance System ............................................................................ 99 7.7 Development of HE in the field of Information-Communication Technology and Robotics .. 99 7.8 Enhancing research performance of HE institutions and PROs to competitively participate in international scientific organizations ........................................................................................... 100 7.9 Centers of excellence in science............................................................................................