About 1.7 million euros were invested in the energy renovation of the old building of the 2nd Elementary School ‘Vladimir Nazor’ in Sveti Ilija in the Varadina County, of which almost one million came from the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism, and the rest was provided by the County, it was announced at the opening of the building on Monday. Over the course of fifteen months, a complete energy renovation of the building was carried out, including new carpentry, modern lighting, heat pumps and a solar power plant, as well as a heating, cooling and air recovery system. In addition to the allocation of around 500,000 euros, the county also financed the furnishing of classrooms, the installation of new floors, video surveillance and the arrangement of space for robots.
The Minister of Science, Education and Youth, Radovan Fuchs, who opened the building, pointed out that it was crucial to design the purpose of the building, which is next to the new school building.
“It would be an absolute shame if this facility were to fail. But it was necessary to design the content, to design why we need two such large school facilities in such a small place, and I would say – it is a school, and this here is a center of knowledge, education, a center of excellence and something else that will eventually appear as the name of this unit,” he said.
He added that he sees the facility as a place for additional education for teachers and principals.
“All this in order to follow development trends, teaching methods of all the tools available to them, and which they may not yet be fully aware of, how to use them, in what way to use them and, in general, how to better and more efficiently transfer the necessary knowledge to students,” said Fuchs.
Upan Strika stressed that the project is part of a broader vision of education development and additional space for centers of excellence and lifelong learning.
“We believe that a space like this is needed in Varaž County and that’s why I believe that everyone who will stay here, attend education, will be well received and will be able to realize their needs for additional skills and knowledge,” said Stričak.
The interesting thing is that each hall in the building is named after one of the military or police units from the Homeland War from the area of Varaždina županija.
“In this symbolic way, we connected the winners of our past with the winners of the future”, said Upan Strika.
Fuchs also answered a journalist’s question regarding the consequences of the storm in Zagreb, that is, the decision to cancel classes. “It is under the authority of the local government, I was in contact with the mayor from the early hours of the morning, so we decided that there would be no school,” said the minister, adding that the damage was not “so drastic”.
“Two schools suffered major damage, and the rest were mostly rain and water leaks. It’s fortunate that it happened before Easter, now we have holidays, and as far as I can tell from the city authorities, they think and claim that everything will be over until the children go back to school,” said the minister.