GOVERNMENT TO DEBATE EDUCATIONAL REFORM IN A MONTH

ZAGREB, Oct 17 (Hina) - The science ministry has estimated that Croatia has lost 47,701 people with high school and college education in the last decade, Minister Gvozden Flego said at a government session on Thursday. #L# The government has concluded that it should be presented with guidelines for an educational reform within a month due to that figure and the fact that only seven percent of the population has a college education, that the average time spent at university is eight years, and that only a little over one third of college students actually graduates. About 140,000 students are studying at five universities and seven two-year colleges. College studying in Croatia is very inefficient as only 38 percent of enrolled students graduates and four-year studies last eight year on average, said Flego. There is an autonomy of faculties in Croatia, while the European standard is an integrated university, he said, adding that this fact called for certain changes. Flego also criticised the tendency to turn dislocated faculties into universities. He also pointed to the problem of two-year colleges, which the state established without providing them with financial support and personnel. Some of these schools are beyond control and it cannot be said how many people are actually enrolled in them, he said. Environmental Protection Minister Bozo Kovacevic said that in the US it would be inconceivable if a professor was not available to a student on a daily basis. Which other country but Croatia has professors with only two to four hours of commitments per week, who fail to turn up at exams or put an appearance at university for five years, he wondered. This urged Prime Minister Ivica Racan to demand that strategic educational reform guidelines be on the government's agenda in four weeks' time, including those for higher education. (hina) ha sb