engleski

Student’ s active role in curriculum development

The present state of the educational system in Republic of Croatia shall be presented in the first part of the paper. This will include the structure and other specifics of the educational system, with the accent on the higher education. It should be highlighted that Croatia is one of the signers of the Bologna Declaration, meaning it will soon be on the way of transforming its educational system. University's thoughts on the changes based on the Bologna process shall also be pointed out in the paper. As the awareness of the coming changes is rather high, the large number of projects with the same goal, development of the curriculum based on the Bologna Declaration, is going on in Croatia. One of the largest TEMPUS projects, “ Aspects of Organization and Information Systems: Curriculum Development” , will be presented in the paper, as well as the results of the survey carried out among students. Goals of all TEMPUS projects, including the one the paper elaborates on, are focused on quality improvement of teaching processes, making the student role active in creating better educational environment and improvement of cooperation between Universities in Croatia and abroad. The main part of the paper discusses items not always present in most discussions on the matter, but which are essential to every consideration about changes. It concerns under-represented groups of students, and those groups which are considered to be under-represented in Croatia. These are: Croatian war veterans (the children of the dead, imprisoned or missing Croatian soldiers ; disabled Veterans from the Croatian Independence War ; the children of disabled Veterans from the Croatian Independence War), Diaspora and disabled people. It will be based on several papers by Croatian educational experts who have done some research concerning the issue. We are aware that only equal conditions of studying mean equal chances of fulfilled life. The only way to put the educational system on test is to observe the study conditions for under-represented groups of students, and in this way reach the answer on weather or not all students have equal chances.

curriculum development; higher education; educational environment

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