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Croatia

Curator
Zoran Kojčić

Quick facts

Course:

Independent ethics course
Elective
14-18 years old
Estimated 1.000 students in each grade (4.000 students in total)
35 hours per year, 1 hour per week
Final exam at state level
Part of the philosophy curriculum
Compulsory
17-18 years old
11.000 students in the 4th year of gymnasium
70 hours per year, 2 hours per week

In 1992, the religious education curriculum was introduced in Croatia. In 1996, the ethics curriculum was introduced as an alternative to religious education. By 2003, the ethical plan and program in Croatian high schools (14-18 years of age) was based on ethics history, so-called ethics, philosophical ethics and the history of religions. A new program was introduced in the same year:

"The program is designed to stimulate thinking, active participation and the use of previous knowledge and to formulate views on key issues of the program. Not to prefer a particular worldview or philosophical direction is to ensure respect for multiculturalism and philosophical openness to dialogue." (PNPE, 2003, 18)

Around 4000 students per year choose ethics. They have one hour per week in all 4 grades of high school (35 school hours per year). At the end of the 4th grade students can choose ethics as an elective subject for the final state exam.

The topic that are covered each year are the following:

1st grade: Meaning and orientation

  1. In search of identity – Dimensioning an image of self
    Barriers in searching – Challenges of growing up and maturing
    Landmarks and traps on the way – Tools and helpers
    Goals: fake, apparent, true – Opposition of ideal and real
    Responsibility for self, nature and others – Citizen of two worlds

2nd grade: Man in community circles

  1. Man in relations
    Conflicts in relations
    Freedom and morality: regulating relations
    Social relations and the state
    Mankind and globalization

3rd grade: Man in a world of nature

  1. Man in a living world
    Bioethics as an answer
    Medical bioethics
    Bioethics and biological sciences
    Ecology and environmental protection

4th grade: Ethics or living reasonably

  1. Morality and ethics
    Human experience and ethical perspectives
    Subject, structure and areas of ethical judgment
    Ethical justification of moral action
    Ethical argumentation and ethical theory

Additionally, ethics is a part of compulsory philosophy course in general grammar schools.