The conference drew experts from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Latvia.
Jovanovic said most Croatian citizens "want to feel safe. In order to be safe, they must be free, and they are free only if free of fear. Fear grows in ignorance, so education is the key to fight for a better life in Croatia."
He voiced confidence that very soon Croatian and Serb children in Vukovar would no longer be segregated in schools and that they would learn everything that was necessary for a better life. He said civic education, to be introduced in Croatian schools next autumn, would play a big role in that, showing citizens "that in a modern civic society, the rights of every person go as far as they don't endanger someone else's rights."
Three models for the education of national minorities were presented at the conference, alongside a school idea by the Nansen Dialogue Centre from Osijek, which has been trying for ten years, in cooperation with Norway, to open in Vukovar an integrated new school in which children would be taught in the Croatian language and script, with the possibility to nurture their own identity and learn about the identity of others.
Jovanovic said his ministry supported the idea, confident that, with the Norwegian government's support, the new school project could be realised in Vukovar and Knin.
He recalled that the constitutional law on national minorities' rights gave the minorities the right to education under three models and that the integrated new school, which could be attended regardless of ethnicity, would be an additional choice.