Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who attended the event in Cakovec, expressed satisfaction that significant funds were being invested in education, notably vocational education.
"There are 25 vocational schools in Croatia that operate as regional centres. We are consistently strengthening the link between education and the demands of entrepreneurs and the business sector. The possibility for the schools to get new equipment, use innovative teaching methods, get new accommodation facilities for students and teachers, and have more apprenticeships and constant teacher training - all of that is the added value of our measures and policies. We can be proud of that because progress is visible," said the prime minister.
Apart from the Cakovec school, grant agreements were also awarded to the medical high schools in Bjelovar and Varazdin and for the reconstruction of Opeka Castle, where a regional centre of competence in agriculture and the Osijek secondary school for electrical and traffic engineering will be based. The total value of the project is HRK 166 million.
Aside from the grant agreements for competence centres, 186 scholarships were awarded to students of the Technical Secondary School, the Civil Engineering School, and the Secondary Vocational School from Cakovec.
Plenkovic said that in just a few years great progress had been made regarding both the number of scholarships and their amount.
"In the school year 2014/2015 there were 291 scholarships worth HRK 1.7 million. In the school year 2018/2019, 2,968 scholarships worth HRK 26.7 million were awarded. That is a tremendous step forward," stressed Plenkovic.
Along with the prime minister, the Cakovec ceremony was attended by the Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts, Darko Horvat, Minister of Labour and Pension System Josip Aladrovic, and the Minister of Science and Education, Blazenka Divjak.
Minister Divjak said that a year and a half ago the ministry decided to open 25 competence centres in all counties, in five priority areas. "It makes me happy that we are already signing agreements and awarding funding," she said, adding that today's event would be followed by the awarding of grant agreements for training, development of new programmes and additional equipment, and that every school can obtain up to HRK 80 million.
Regional competence centres are only one part of the vocational education reform that is being implemented in parallel with the general education curricular reform and that consists of the reform of school curricula and the project of dual education, Divjak said.
"A total of 451 students are taking part in experimental programmes... Those are programmes which focus more on on-the-job learning, which is a new model in our vocational education," said Divjak and added that HRK 1.3 billion was being invested in the 25 competence centres as the third segment of the education reform.
(€1 = 7.456065)