Early Childhood Inclusion in Croatia

Abstract

This article explains early childhood inclusion in Croatia from its beginnings up to challenges in current policy and practice. The first preschool education for children with disabilities dates back to the 1980s and was provided in special institutions. In the last 10 years, mainstream kindergartens have been enrolling children with disabilities but unevenly in different Croatian regions and also with a different quality of support. The lower economic potential of the rural and smaller local communities adversely influence the possibility of organizing support for children with disabilities in general, especially in an inclusive setting. The great challenge in analyzing the quality of early childhood inclusion in educational settings is the lack of reliable sources of data and evaluation research. Main challenges in early childhood inclusion and future directions are discussed.

Autism and education—The role of Europeanisation in South‐Eastern Europe: Policy mapping in Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia

“…The majority of identified policies focuses on one level of the Croatian educational system for children up to 18 years (either preschool, elementary or secondary school level). During the communist era of Croatia, the right to education in regular schools for children with disabilities was legally endorsed and education became compulsory for all children until 16 years, although the primary goal of education was the ‘formation of a comprehensively developed socialist’ (Croatian Ministry of Education and Sport, 1989; Ljubešíc & Šimleša, 2016).…”

“…With the aim to improve the legislative framework of educational integration, milestones for the upcoming years were set such as adopting the curricula for students with disabilities and establishing a program for effective educational integration (Croatian Government, 2007;Croatian Government, 2017). While Croatia was among the first countries to sign and ratify the CRPD (Ljubešíc & Šimleša, 2016), the Parliament already passed a Declaration on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2005, promising to adapt the education system to the needs of persons with disabilities (Croatian Parliament, 2005).…”