XV Gymnasium
Encyclopedia
Fifteenth Gymnasium previously called, and still better known as, MIOC, is a public high school in Zagreb, Croatia. It specializes in mathematics and computer science and it is considered to be the best high school in the country, along with Fifth Gymnasium (V. gimnazija), also located in Zagreb. Therefore, in the previous years, it has been increasingly more difficult to be accepted to the school.
specializing in mathematics, along with Mathematical Gymnasium
(Matematička gimnazija) in Belgrade
.
The first principal was Stefanija Bakarić, sister of Vladimir Bakarić
, one of the leading politicians in the ruling League of Communists of Yugoslavia
and the chairman of the League of Communists of Croatia
at the time. The original curriculum was composed with help from acclaimed university professors Svetozar Kurepa
, Branislav Marković and Vladimir Devide. At the beginning, most of the teachers were university professors.
In 1965 it became the first school in Croatia to have informatics as a school subject. Students first got the chance to work on actual computers in 1980.
In 1977, the school, now in a new building, merged with Seventh Gymnasium (VII. gimnazija) and Fourteenth Gymnasium (XIV. gimnazija, also then known as 25. maj). The newly founded school is named Education Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (Matematičko informatički obrazovni centar), abbreviated as MIOC. The school is still informally widely known under that name.
Denis Kuljiš, a known Croatian political columnist and opinion maker, himself an alumnus of XV. gimnazija, argues that at this point the quality of the school started to go down, since the teachers at other schools involved in the merger were not up to the standards of the school.
In 1982, MIOC is renamed MIOC Vladimir Popović. In 1991, after the fall of Communism, the school again changes its name and is once again known as Fifteenth Gymnasium.
In 2007, the management of the school planned to held a celebration of its thirty years of existence, which sparked strong protests from alumni who graduated before 1977. In the end, the school held the celebration while mentioning both 1964 and 1977 as important dates in the history of the school.
neighborhood of Zagreb, in the seventies. Before that, it was located in an older building in Sutlanska street. The new building was built especially for this purpose and thus contains some of the infrastructure schools in Zagreb, Croatia and the whole Balkan region
lack. There are two gyms, an outdoor sports centre, a cafeteria and a cinema hall. The school especially prides itself on the amount of modern technology available to both teachers and students.
In 2008, the third wing of the building was opened. With an increased number of classrooms, the classes now take place only in the morning while afternoons are reserved for extracurricular activities, a relative rarity among Croatian schools.
In the national program, the students follow the curriculum of mathematical - natural scientific gymnasium, as outlined by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (Ministarstvo znanosti, obrazovanja i športa). There are three sub-programs: one of them has an additional weekly hour of mathematics and an additional weekly hour of computer science, one has two additional weekly hours of mathematics and one has two weekly hours of second foreign language, usually German
.
IB program, which was founded in 1991, is not publicly funded and is instead financed by student tuitions. In it, the school follows the usual IB curriculum, divided into two segments - IB Middle Years Programme
(grades 9 and 10) and IB Diploma Programme
(grades 11 and 12). Around 200, both Croatian and foreign, students are in IB classes. All the classes are conducted in English.
Among most notable international results are multiple successes, both in team and single events, at:
Also noted in the local media, arguably even more than the more important successes mentioned above, were the successes in American Computer Science League
, controversially painted in the media as "triumph of knowledge over wealth".
Most, if not all, of the students participating in the international and top-tier national competitions come from the publicly funded national program.
, Slovenia
. The students of Second Gymnasium participated in the school celebrations in 2007 with the performance of the musical We Will Rock You
.
Also, the school runs an exchange and cooperation program with Kasetsart University Laboratory School
, one of the more notable schools in Bangkok
, Thailand
.
and at the Faculty of Science, with its numerous departments, at the University of Zagreb
. Some of them continue working in science after university graduation - there are many alumni working at aforementioned faculties, ranging from teaching assistants to academics, such as Marko Tadić, a professor at the Department of Mathematics. Branko Jeren, minister of science and technology of Croatia in the mid-nineties, who is currently a professor at Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
is also an alumnus of the school.
Many of MIOC graduates went abroad, either immediately after finishing high school or later. Perhaps the most notable scientist who graduated from MIOC is Marin Soljačić
, a physicist currently residing in the United States
. Some of these later returned to Croatia, but continue working internationally, such as Bojan Žagrović.
As alumni culture is not well developed in the Balkans, it is difficult to reach a complete list of notable alumni of XV. gimnazija, especially in areas other than science. Besides Denis Kuljiš, a known political columnist and reporter from Zagreb, some national TV personalities and actors also graduated from XV. gimnazija, such as Filip Brajković, Amar Bukvić (who graduated in the International Baccalaureate program) and Domagoj Novokmet, who acted as a host for the celebration of the school held in 2007 in Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
.
Football player Niko Kranjčar
also graduated from MIOC. He is probably the most notable sports person known to be an alumnus of the school. Andrej Kramarić
, also a professional footballer from Zagreb, is expected to graduate from the school in 2010.
History
The school was founded as Fifteenth Mathematical Gymnasium (XV. matematička gimnazija) in 1964. When it was founded, it was the among the first schools in YugoslaviaSocialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the Yugoslav state that existed from the abolition of the Yugoslav monarchy until it was dissolved in 1992 amid the Yugoslav Wars. It was a socialist state and a federation made up of six socialist republics: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia,...
specializing in mathematics, along with Mathematical Gymnasium
Matematicka gimnazija
Matematička gimnazija , is a special school for gifted and talented students of mathematics, physics and informatics located in Belgrade, Serbia...
(Matematička gimnazija) in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
.
The first principal was Stefanija Bakarić, sister of Vladimir Bakarić
Vladimir Bakaric
Dr. Vladimir Bakarić was a Croatian communist and a politician in Socialist Yugoslavia.Bakarić helped organize Partisan resistance in Croatia during World War II. From 1948 to 1969 he was the chairman of the Croatian League of Communists, and as such was a close collaborator of President Josip...
, one of the leading politicians in the ruling League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia
League of Communists of Yugoslavia , before 1952 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia League of Communists of Yugoslavia (Serbo-Croatian: Savez komunista Jugoslavije/Савез комуниста Југославије, Slovene: Zveza komunistov Jugoslavije, Macedonian: Сојуз на комунистите на Југославија, Sojuz na...
and the chairman of the League of Communists of Croatia
League of Communists of Croatia
League of Communists of Croatia was the Croatian branch of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia . Until 1952, it was known as Communist Party of Croatia .- History :...
at the time. The original curriculum was composed with help from acclaimed university professors Svetozar Kurepa
Svetozar Kurepa
Svetozar Kurepa was a mathematician whose main contributions were in the areas of functional analysis and operator theory. Kurepa published over 70 articles, 16 books, and numerous scientific reviews. He taught at the University of Zagreb, where he also served as the Dean of the College of Sciences...
, Branislav Marković and Vladimir Devide. At the beginning, most of the teachers were university professors.
In 1965 it became the first school in Croatia to have informatics as a school subject. Students first got the chance to work on actual computers in 1980.
In 1977, the school, now in a new building, merged with Seventh Gymnasium (VII. gimnazija) and Fourteenth Gymnasium (XIV. gimnazija, also then known as 25. maj). The newly founded school is named Education Center for Mathematics and Computer Science (Matematičko informatički obrazovni centar), abbreviated as MIOC. The school is still informally widely known under that name.
Denis Kuljiš, a known Croatian political columnist and opinion maker, himself an alumnus of XV. gimnazija, argues that at this point the quality of the school started to go down, since the teachers at other schools involved in the merger were not up to the standards of the school.
In 1982, MIOC is renamed MIOC Vladimir Popović. In 1991, after the fall of Communism, the school again changes its name and is once again known as Fifteenth Gymnasium.
In 2007, the management of the school planned to held a celebration of its thirty years of existence, which sparked strong protests from alumni who graduated before 1977. In the end, the school held the celebration while mentioning both 1964 and 1977 as important dates in the history of the school.
Building
The school moved to the current building, in Jordanovac in the MaksimirMaksimir
Maksimir is one of the neighborhoods of Zagreb, Croatia. Maksimir stadium and Maksimir Park are located in it. It was named after the bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac....
neighborhood of Zagreb, in the seventies. Before that, it was located in an older building in Sutlanska street. The new building was built especially for this purpose and thus contains some of the infrastructure schools in Zagreb, Croatia and the whole Balkan region
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
lack. There are two gyms, an outdoor sports centre, a cafeteria and a cinema hall. The school especially prides itself on the amount of modern technology available to both teachers and students.
In 2008, the third wing of the building was opened. With an increased number of classrooms, the classes now take place only in the morning while afternoons are reserved for extracurricular activities, a relative rarity among Croatian schools.
Curriculum
There are around 1200 students, divided into two parts: the so-called "national program" and International Baccalaureate program.In the national program, the students follow the curriculum of mathematical - natural scientific gymnasium, as outlined by the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports (Ministarstvo znanosti, obrazovanja i športa). There are three sub-programs: one of them has an additional weekly hour of mathematics and an additional weekly hour of computer science, one has two additional weekly hours of mathematics and one has two weekly hours of second foreign language, usually German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
IB program, which was founded in 1991, is not publicly funded and is instead financed by student tuitions. In it, the school follows the usual IB curriculum, divided into two segments - IB Middle Years Programme
IB Middle Years Programme
The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme is an educational programme intended for students aged approximately 11 to 16 . Thus, in the United States the programme is often taught throughout the middle school years and the first two years of high school...
(grades 9 and 10) and IB Diploma Programme
IB Diploma Programme
The International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme is a two-year educational programme for students aged 16–19that provides an internationally accepted qualification for entry into higher education, and is recognised by universities worldwide. It was developed in the early to mid-1960s in Geneva by...
(grades 11 and 12). Around 200, both Croatian and foreign, students are in IB classes. All the classes are conducted in English.
Extracurricular Activities and Successes
Besides the usual range of extracurricular activities, the school prides itself on the work it does preparing their students for national and international competitions. University students work along full-time teachers preparing the students, which is a rather uncommon way of preparing, used only in a few Croatian schools and a bit more schools in the Balkans.Among most notable international results are multiple successes, both in team and single events, at:
- International Olympiad in InformaticsInternational Olympiad in InformaticsThe International Olympiad in Informatics is an annual computer science competition for secondary school students. The first IOI was held in 1989 in Pravetz, Bulgaria....
- International Mathematical OlympiadInternational Mathematical OlympiadThe International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual six-problem, 42-point mathematical olympiad for pre-collegiate students and is the oldest of the International Science Olympiads. The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. It has since been held annually, except in 1980...
- International Physics OlympiadInternational Physics OlympiadThe International Physics Olympiad is an annual physics competition for high school students. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. The first IPhO was held in Warsaw, Poland in 1967....
- International Astronomy OlympiadInternational Astronomy OlympiadThe International Astronomy Olympiad is an internationally recognized annual astronomy scientific-educating event for high school students , which includes an intellectual competition between these students...
- International Junior Science OlympiadInternational Junior Science OlympiadThe International Junior Science Olympiad is an international science competition for students not older than 15 years old. It was first held in 2004 in Jakarta, Indonesia and is held every year since then. Each country may send a team of up to 6 students and 3 team leaders. Some of the...
.
Also noted in the local media, arguably even more than the more important successes mentioned above, were the successes in American Computer Science League
American Computer Science League
ACSL , or the American Computer Science League, is an international computer science competition among more than 200 schools. Each round consists of two parts: a written section and a programming section...
, controversially painted in the media as "triumph of knowledge over wealth".
Most, if not all, of the students participating in the international and top-tier national competitions come from the publicly funded national program.
Cooperation
Besides cooperating with many governmental and non-governmental organizations dealing with education in Zagreb, the school is noted for its long standing friendship with Second Gymnasium (II. gimnazija) in MariborMaribor
Maribor is the second largest city in Slovenia with 157,947 inhabitants . Maribor is also the largest and the capital city of Slovenian region Lower Styria and the seat of the Municipality of Maribor....
, Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
. The students of Second Gymnasium participated in the school celebrations in 2007 with the performance of the musical We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You (musical)
We Will Rock You is a jukebox musical, based on the songs of Queen and named after their hit single of the same name. The musical was written by British comedian and author Ben Elton in collaboration with Queen members Brian May and Roger Taylor...
.
Also, the school runs an exchange and cooperation program with Kasetsart University Laboratory School
Kasetsart University Laboratory School
Kasetsart University Laboratory School Center for Educational Research and Development , informally known as Satit Kaset , is a well-known laboratory school in Bangkok, Thailand, operated under the auspices of...
, one of the more notable schools in Bangkok
Bangkok
Bangkok is the capital and largest urban area city in Thailand. It is known in Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon or simply Krung Thep , meaning "city of angels." The full name of Bangkok is Krung Thep Mahanakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahintharayutthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
.
Alumni
As XV. gimnazija specializes in mathematics and computer science, it is understandable that most alumni of the school continue their studies at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and ComputingFaculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing is one of the top faculties of University of Zagreb. The faculty is regarded as "the largest technical faculty and the leading educational as well as research-and-development institution in the fields of electrical engineering and computing in...
and at the Faculty of Science, with its numerous departments, at the University of Zagreb
University of Zagreb
The University of Zagreb is the biggest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of Southeastern Europe...
. Some of them continue working in science after university graduation - there are many alumni working at aforementioned faculties, ranging from teaching assistants to academics, such as Marko Tadić, a professor at the Department of Mathematics. Branko Jeren, minister of science and technology of Croatia in the mid-nineties, who is currently a professor at Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing
The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing is one of the top faculties of University of Zagreb. The faculty is regarded as "the largest technical faculty and the leading educational as well as research-and-development institution in the fields of electrical engineering and computing in...
is also an alumnus of the school.
Many of MIOC graduates went abroad, either immediately after finishing high school or later. Perhaps the most notable scientist who graduated from MIOC is Marin Soljačić
Marin Soljacic
Marin Soljačić is a Croatian physicist and electrical engineer known for wireless non-radiative energy transfer.-Biography:...
, a physicist currently residing in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Some of these later returned to Croatia, but continue working internationally, such as Bojan Žagrović.
As alumni culture is not well developed in the Balkans, it is difficult to reach a complete list of notable alumni of XV. gimnazija, especially in areas other than science. Besides Denis Kuljiš, a known political columnist and reporter from Zagreb, some national TV personalities and actors also graduated from XV. gimnazija, such as Filip Brajković, Amar Bukvić (who graduated in the International Baccalaureate program) and Domagoj Novokmet, who acted as a host for the celebration of the school held in 2007 in Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall is a large concert hall and convention center in Zagreb, Croatia. It is named after Vatroslav Lisinski, a 19th-century Croatian composer. The building has a big hall with 1841 seats and a small hall with 305 seats. A large lobby doubles as an exhibition...
.
Football player Niko Kranjčar
Niko Kranjcar
Niko Kranjčar is a Croatian footballer who plays as a midfielder for Tottenham Hotspur and the Croatia national team.He represented two of the biggest clubs in his homeland, playing for Dinamo Zagreb before sparking controversy by making a move to their fierce rivals Hajduk Split in 2005...
also graduated from MIOC. He is probably the most notable sports person known to be an alumnus of the school. Andrej Kramarić
Andrej Kramarić
Andrej Kramarić is a Croatian professional footballer who currently plays for team GNK Dinamo Zagreb. He is also a member of Croatia under-19 and under-21 national teams....
, also a professional footballer from Zagreb, is expected to graduate from the school in 2010.