The Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) was carried out in 2013, covering 34 countries and 107,000 primary school teachers and principals. In Croatia, which was included in the survey for the first time, 3,675 teachers in grades 5 to 8 and 199 principals of 200 primary schools were polled.
Science, Education and Sport Minister Vedran Mornar drew attention to the fact that Croatian principals were the least trained for running schools, saying that for that reason a training and licensing programme was being launched. He said that teachers had underlined the need for their further training and the need for teachers at teacher-training colleges to be better trained for work with pupils with special needs.
TALIS national project manager Michelle Bras Roth also warned that a high percentage of school principals had not completed school management programmes and that such programmes would need to be introduced for them as soon as possible. She noted that teachers were concerned about the unfavourable attitude of society towards their profession as less than 10 percent of teachers polled believed that their profession was valued in society.
Bras Roth said that Croatian teachers had similar working hours like their colleagues in other European countries, while the greatest differences were observed in comparison with Far East countries, such as South Korea, Japan and Singapore, where teachers spent more time preparing their lessons. As a point of interest, she said that Croatian teachers spent most time disciplining pupils in religious education classes.
Analysing various forms of pupil misbehaviour, Bras Roth said that the biggest problems in Croatian schools were cheating at exams (31% as against the TALIS average of 13%), coming late to school (20% as against the TALIS average of 52%), truancy (39%) and verbal abuse among pupils (16%).
In the countries covered by the survey, 87% of teachers on average share the same beliefs about teaching and learning, while in Croatia their proportion is the lowest at 57%.