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Service learning in University of Zagreb – past, present, and future

Service learning (S-L) is an innovative pedagogical approach that integrates meaningful community service or engagement into the curriculum and offers students academic credit for the learning that derives from active engagement within community and work on a real world problem. The pioneer of S-L in Croatia is Nives Mikelić Preradović who introduced this teaching method in the academic year 2006/2007 at the Department of Information and Communication Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Several years later, S-L was also introduced at the Faculty of Law (“Basics of counselling” from 2012/2013) and the Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (“Psychology of adoption” from 2014/2015). University of Zagreb is one of 12 partners in the Erasmus + KA2 project Europe Engage (2015-2017), aiming to promote S-L as a pedagogical approach that embeds and develops civic engagement within higher education, students, staff and the wider community. The results of the promotion slowly begin to emerge, additionally facilitated by the ESF Operational Programme Efficient Human Resources 2014-2020 that invited tenders for the „Support for the development of partnerships between NGOs and higher education institutions for the implementation of S-L programs“. The response, from NGOs and higher education institutions was exceptionally high. Latest research (Modić Stanke & Putarek, 2016), revealed the existing interest of the students at the University of Zagreb to enroll in some course with S-L component. The Rector of the University of Zagreb expressed his support through the idea of establishing an S-L office at the University.

service learning, University of Zagreb, students, teachers, community

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