“School for Life “– Theoretical Background and Analyisis of Croatian Reform in School Education

Objections to the fact that education is, on the one hand, overburdened by theory and separate from practice or, on the other hand, completely separate from theory can be found in contemporary researches and theory of education. These objections also imply the problem of selecting the content, as well as the way of teaching and formulating the desired outcomes arising from the education process. One of the possible solutions to this problem is the concept of “school for life†, which, in the pursuit of John Dewey’s philosophy of education, leads to the abolition of the false dichotomy of theory and practice in education. Contemporary education can, therefore, no longer be understood as a process in which passive subjects acquire knowledge, but as activity of subjects that by experimenting and innovating adjust the content that comes from experience and ultimately applies them again to everyday life. In this way, the outcomes of the educational process should be understood not as dogmatic reproductions of existing knowledge, but as an entity’s ability to participate fully in the life of the community to which it belongs, including lifelong education, participating in the process of acquiring work experience and active, responsible and constructive action within community. The demand for meaningful education related to the subject’s developmental age, its interests and close to its everyday life experiences is also shaped by the current reform of the Croatian educational system, which is developing under the concept of “school for life†. The aim of this paper is to establish the theoretical framework of such a request, to analyse specific Croatian case and to examine how close to the contemporary tendencies in education Croatian reform in school education has really come to.