Croatian language introduced as school subject in Austrian state
- by croatiaweek
- in News
Croatian language introduced as school subject in Austrian state
Croatia’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Gordan Grlić Radman, met with the Minister for European, International Affairs, Education, and Human Resources of the Austrian federal state of Styria, Werner Amon on the weekend.
During the meeting, the official decision of the Styrian Federal State from January 2024 was announced, regarding the introduction of the Croatian language as an independent subject in the regular school system of Styria starting from the school year 2024/25, the ministry said in a press statement.
The treatment of the Croatian language in the Austrian education system is one of the significant bilateral issues, and this decision is based on the standpoint that the Croatian language is an official language of the European Union, rendering the BKS (Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian) instruction no longer appropriate.
This is the result of continuous joint efforts and interdepartmental cooperation of the Government of the Republic of Croatia towards Austrian competent authorities and authorities.
This is also a significant step towards the overall resolution of respecting the sovereignty of the Croatian language in Austria, as at the federal level, there still exists a scientifically unfounded recommendation from the Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research from 1996 related to the instruction of the mother tongue for Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian (BKS) “without differentiation based on ethnic affiliations.”
Minister Grlić Radman emphasised that Croats in Austria are well integrated, our two friendly countries have long historical ties, and the Croatian language was introduced as an independent language in statistics over a hundred years ago.
“This is a great achievement and the result of our long-standing efforts to provide Croatian children with an important foundation for quality learning of their mother tongue. I thank Styria for its great commitment in this area. This significant step in Styria paves the way for a satisfactory status of Croatian mother tongue education and the Croatian language throughout Austria,” said the minister.
