No evidence of compulsory national curricula inclusive of LGBTQI people: 0/10 | The compulsory national curricula includes representation of one ground of discrimination: 5/10 | Two grounds: 7.5/10 | Three grounds: 10/10
The National Curriculum Framework [110] establishes that sexual orientation and gender identity should be discussed as part of secondary education. The study LGBT Topics in High School andElementary School Textbooks [111], however, shows that “homosexuality” is mainly mentioned in negative context (sickness - HIV) in biology, psychology and religion textbooks.
A comprehensive curricular reform, was initiated in 2015 by the former government to shift Croatia’s education system. It aimed to enable children and later students to learn skills as well as facts and be more competitive in the labour market. A working group was created with experts from different fields, including teachers and professors. The group worked for over 16 months on the draft of the reform. The topic of sexuality was, however, only present in biology and lessons related to health, and it was restricted to topics such as “responsible sexual behaviour”. The categories of gender and LGBTQI persons are never mentioned. The planned outcomes include “equality between sexes” (the term gender equality is not used), human rights and anti-discrimination, but most of the bases for discrimination, such as gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation are not mentioned. For example, there is one outcome that says that the students should be able to recognise different bases of discrimination, but it is unclear how are they supposed to learn them if they are not named. Also, it is peculiar that the topic of human rights is most present in the subject of Catholic religion.
After failed attempts by successive Governments to reform the education system, the initiative ‘Croatia can do better’ organised a protest on 1 June for the second time. As on the protest the year before, thousands of people gathered in Ban Jelačić Square in support of the curricular reform. Workon the reform was continued by the new Minister of Science, Education and Sport, Blaženka Divjak, appointed on 9 June. The draft of the Act regulating the implementation of the new reform contains a regulation saying that if the Education and Teacher Training Agency estimates that a topic or module has a distinct impact on the child’s beliefs and values, they will be defined as non-obligatory and alternative lessons must be provided. Thus, the parents will have the option to decide if the child will attend these lessons or not. This regulation has been interpreted as an influence from conservative member of the group that drafted the Act, and in general conservative groups such as ‘In the Name of the Family’ that are attempting to reinforce the influence of the parents on the curriculum. The new curriculum should start with an experimental implementation in 2018.
No extracurricular activities have been funded in regard to LGBTQI topics. Out of a list of sixty educational programmes [112] that received governmental financial support, none of them address content on sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, or variations in sex characteristics.
