Croatian educational policy in the context of education for citizenship

Marina Diković

Summary:  One of the priorities of contemporary education, as well as in long-life education, is to teach pupils how to actively participate in the community and contribute to it, in order to become well-informed, active, and responsible (i.e. more effective and influential) citizens. The majority of European countries, including the transition countries, have introduced Education for Citizenship, whose aim is the acquisition of civic literacy, into their educational policies as a separate, explicit educational goal. The aim of this paper is to consider and compare within the European context the concept of Education for Citizenship in Croatian educational policy of compulsory (primary) education. The current National Program on Primary Education (2006) included Education for Citizenship within integrated contents, whereas in the proposal of the National Frameworks of Curriculum for Pre-School Education and General Compulsory Primary and Secondary School Education (2008) it is determined as a cross-curricular content, module, or school subject. In accordance with the results of research conducted within this field and our own considerations, this paper aims to emphasize the importance of terminology and content determination of Education for Citizenship and its embedding into Croatian educational policy, which is a prerequisite of its implementation.