Minister of Science, Education and Sports Zeljko Jovanovic told a press conference on Wednesday after the Constitutional Court passed down a ruling to abolish the Health Education Curriculum that it had not been abolished and that not one fact of its content was brought into question, adding that a public debate over the curriculum would be organised.
Minister Jovanovic said he still had not seen the court's ruling but the "only thing that is contentious was part of the procedure which we in the ministry do not agree with but naturally we will respect the Constitutional Court's decision".
He announced a public debate on the issue that is to be held during June. "I invite all those interested, from teachers organisation, to NGOs to submit their proposals and then based on those we will conduct a review in July, an international one", Minister Jovanovic said and announced that a German reviewer would be organised.
"After an extensive review by domestic and international experts and the public, in August we will make some final adjustments and introduce the curriculum in the 2013/2014 school year which will be the same or even better", Jovanovic said.
The minister is not even thinking of resigning and believes that health education is "one of the best, if not the best" move by his ministry. "Had anything about the content of the curriculum been contentious, I would have resigned immediately", he said, stressing that he was even more determined to implement health education in schools.
The Constitutional Court ruling notes that the new curriculum contain content in line with the programme at the beginning of this school year while Jovanovic interpreted that the programme has almost already been completely implemented.
One of the authors of the health and sexual education programme Aleksandar Stulhofer did not wish to comment the court's ruling but said that the ruling referred to procedure and not content. Stulhofer is the head of the Sexology Department at the University of Zagreb.
