British Embassy Zagreb invites applications for study trip to Northern Ireland
We’re inviting history teachers in Croatian secondary schools to apply for a study trip to Northern Ireland from 19 to 23 February 2024.
The British Embassy in Zagreb will be taking 8 educational professionals on a 3-day study trip to Belfast to exchange experience on teaching post-conflict history. The program will include seminars at local universities with conflict-teaching experts, visits to local catholic, protestant and integrated secondary schools and a tour of conflict memorials in Belfast, as well as opportunities to meet Northern Irish counterparts socially.
To apply for the trip, write a short essay (no more than 350 words) answering:
- what you consider most important in teaching history
- why learning history is important for the future
- how you think this study trip will benefit your work
Send the essay along with a short CV to british.embassyzagreb@fcdo.gov.uk by 23 November 2023.
The only requirement for the competition is that you are a high school history teacher (alternatively Croatian language, religion, sociology, etc.). We will select candidates based on the essay and CV. We would like to include professors from different regions of Croatia and with different levels of professional experience.
The British Embassy will cover the costs of travel, accommodation and daily expenses and handle all logistics and booking.
Note that the programme will be in English, without translation.
Encouraging regional stability in Southeast Europe is one of the British Embassy in Zagreb’s top priorities. As the UK has also been through a period of inter-communal peace-building in Northern Ireland in the last 30 years, we appreciate the importance of engaging with young people from across communities and building a shared understanding of the past and compassion for all sides. Young people primarily learn about their history at school.
The experience of Northern Ireland shows that it is sometimes highly challenging to hold open and nuanced conversations while the past still shapes present-day identities. Therefore, this study trip to Belfast aims to allow educational professionals from Croatia to exchange practical and methodological techniques for teaching recent conflicts in schools in an open, nuanced way.
We also hope that this will build a long-term network of contacts between teachers in the two countries. The issue of teaching the conflict still presents an ongoing challenge for Northern Ireland, and there is no “perfect” model to follow. Therefore during the trip you will also be able to present your own experience of teaching sensitive historical topics to help colleagues in Belfast with their own work.