Education is one of the most important aspects of modern society and it is one of the biggest influences on our future. Many countries have recognized its importance. Some of them invest even 20 % of their GDP in education.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a country with 3.7 million people; it has three official languages and three education systems, based on those languages. When we see B&H's population and those big differences between the systems, we realize how illogical this division is. The school system does not recognize the importance of involving students of different ethnic groups and religions in shared activities. Because of that, we see a rise in prejudges and stereotypes, which leads to many verbal conflicts, hate speech or even street fights.
The problem would not be so great if there were differences only in language classes. The youth of B&H learns three versions of history, three versions of geography, three versions of all subjects. It isn’t possible for there to be three histories, three chemistries or three physics. The fact that the Bosnia and Herzegovina invests only 7 % of its GDP in its education tells us enough.
At the same time, we have positive examples of unification; the children of Jajce, who refused to visit separated classes, a school in Mostar with both curriculums, a new language class in Sarajevo called B/C/S-Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian. Meanwhile, we see the lack of this practice in schools around B&H, where the students in high schools don't have any equipment or enough classrooms for that.
A big problem and obstacle for students to improve their skills is a lack of recognition of the importance of activism and volunteerism, where unformal education isn’t supported. The consequence is passivity among young people in our country.
According to the research done by an internet platform in B&H, more than 60% of youth in high schools is not included in any unformal education. In conclusion, we can say that the state of B&H's education system is caused by the country's political division, and that there is a presence of political influences on education and the curriculum, but at the same time we can say that there is potential for change that is crucial at this point in time.