CROATIA

Gimnazija A.G.Matosa is a secondary school that prepares students for further education. School is located in eastern part of Croatia, the part which was severely destroyed during the war 20 years ago. Devastation caused by the war can be still felt. This area is mostly agricultural with very poor industry, which resulted in a large percentage of unemployed people who have been experiencing crises for almost 10 years. However, it wasn’t like that in the past when this region was one of the richest in the country so it is difficult to accept that you live in a disadvantaged area. All these reasons reflected on the choice of schools for most students. In spite the fact that they can’t get a job after finishing this school, they choose it. They hope to be able to study at university, finish it and get wellpaid job unlike their parents who, quite often, live on social benefits. Our school is not so big, 435 students, but it offers 3 different courses that students can choose from: general, maths and language course. Regular competitions in different subjects are held every year proving how successful our students are especially in history, languages, science, sport, choir singing, and performance arts. The school management attach a basic importance to performance arts. We have a large theatre hall and some digital equipments for performances. Currently, we are working on the Erasmus+ project Understanding and Critical Media Literacy, which started in 2016 and will finish in May 2019. We were the host for the mobility in 2017. This project about media is well -accepted among students and teachers as it is dealing with important issues like fake news, manipulation, protection on the internet, cyber bullying, advertising, hidden messages etc. Finally, what they acquired during the work in the project they share with their colleagues, families, students who didn’t participate, implement the knowledge in every day teaching, helping to build the bridges between different cultures. In Croatia, there is traditionally a close correlation between ethnic identity and religious affiliation. A historically important source of revenue, tourism was negatively affected by the war in the 1990s. The conflict deterred potential tourists from traveling to the country, and many empty hotels were used to house refugees and displaced persons. Significant investment has been necessary to revive the tourist industry. So, new generation of our country need to learn and improve our cultural values and history to create new jobs and improvement of the socioeconomic growth.