Over 93% of teachers in Croatia have experienced inappropriate behaviour of their students' parents and 40% have come under pressure from parents to increase their children's marks, a survey shows.

The survey was conducted among 2,811 primary and secondary school teachers as part of the School Pulse project launched by a team of researchers from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb and school book publisher Profil Klett with the support of the unions of primary and secondary school teachers.

The survey revealed that 93.5% of teachers had experienced at least one incidence of inappropriate behaviour or action by parents of their students in the last 12 months. During that period, teachers experienced on average nine different forms of inappropriate behaviour from parents regarding their children’s school obligations.

29.7% of teachers experienced physical or verbal violence from parents, with 85% of respondents saying that they considered such situations to be the biggest problem in their interaction with parents.

40% of teachers came under increased pressure from parents to up their children’s marks, and 52.4% respondents said that parents expected them to be available at all times. As many as 80.3% of teachers had to deal with parents with unrealistic expectations from their children and 74.2% with parents with unrealistic expectations from teachers.

In addition, 71.9% of respondents encountered parents who fulfilled school obligations for their children, 77.1% encountered parents who showed no interest in their children’s education, and 54.8% of teachers complained about parents who never come to school or respond to their calls.

68% of teachers said that during their education they had not been trained in how to interact with parents, and 41.3% said they had never received an education about teacher-parent interaction.

“This survey shows that the parent-teacher relationship has changed and there are no clear standards and rules of behaviour in this regard. Since the traditional standards that regulated this relationship obviously no longer apply, new standards should be developed,” research manager Dragan Bagic said.

Sanja Sprem, leader of the Primary School Teachers’ Union, said: “This initiative has clearly identified the burning issues. It will provide concrete support for work with students and present the results to the education authorities in order to find effective solutions that will benefit all stakeholders in the education system.”

Nada Lovric, head of the Secondary School Teachers’ Union, said that more and more parents hired lawyers to protect the rights of their children when they failed to meet or violated their school obligations. She said this was a completely inappropriate form of pressure on teachers, who rarely receive support from school heads or counsellors, adding that this inevitably leads to a further deterioration in the education system, mostly to the detriment of students.