The spotlight is on Dr. Frane Urem, Vice Dean and Professor, Polytechnic of Šibenik, Croatia.

Dr. Frane Urem, Vice Dean and Professor at Polytechnic of Šibenik, is a senior lecturer in object-oriented programming, software engineering, introduction to databases, and design of information systems. With a Ph.D. in Computer Engineering and professional experience in the IT industry prior to his academic career, Dr. Urem is skilled in all major programming languages and a strong proponent of Java.

For Java, Dr. Urem follows the curriculum designed by Oracle Academy, teaching Java Fundamentals to polytechnic students and training high school teachers to do the same. Not only is he the only Oracle Academy trainer in Croatia, but he also delivers Oracle Academy trainings to colleagues across Central and Eastern Europe, including online and in-class courses in Java Fundamentals and Database Design and Programming with SQL.

Oracle Academy: Why have you focused on teaching students and training other teachers Java?

Dr. Frane Urem: I’d say over the past five years, around 50-70% of IT jobs are connected to Java. If you are a Java programmer or developer in Croatia you have no problem finding employment. At our institution, the Polytechnic of Šibenik, we are preparing students for their future careers in the economy and the prospects are bright. Companies send out headhunters who publicly claim that anyone who knows how to program in Java is welcome in their company. Most of my students have found a job one month after graduating.

Another aspect to the importance of teaching Java is that Croatia has had a brain drain in the past and needs more STEM graduates to bolster the economy in the academic disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. To find out more, watch the video.

Oracle Academy: How did you become involved with Oracle Academy?

Dr. Frane Urem: In 2016, I joined a week-long event in Zagreb organized by Oracle Academy to bring Java Foundations training to faculty teachers. Over the past 18 months, I successfully completed training in Java Foundations, Java Fundamentals, and Database Design and Programming with SQL.

I was then invited to become an Oracle Academy Instructor and have trained teachers in Croatia as well as locations such as Hungary, Slovak Republic, and other Eastern European countries.

Oracle Academy: What is the main challenge with training teachers?

Dr. Frane Urem: The main challenge is that although they know how to teach, they do not always have digital competencies. By that, I mean that up to now nobody has shown middle and high school teachers how to teach kids modern programming languages or object oriented databases. That’s where Oracle Academy excels.

Before, we had to surf the net and trawl bookshelves to compile content for our courses. With Oracle Academy, all the resources are in one place at your fingertips; it’s fantastic. Today if you are a teacher and you want to improve your digital competencies, Oracle Academy courses get you very competitive in a very short time. That’s my experience.

Oracle Academy: Can you tell us about some of the trainings you deliver?

Dr. Frane Urem: I’m currently involved in delivering a new series of trainings, with total of 160 teachers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Estonia, Slovakia, and Slovenia registering for four available trainings: Java Foundations, Java Programming, Database Foundations and Database Design and Programming with SQL.

Prior to this, at Šibenik, I taught 32 students Java Fundamentals and Database Design and Programming with SQL. In Croatia and the region, I trained 61 teachers in Java Fundamentals. I also taught the beginner Getting Started with Java Using Alice course as a volunteer, for which I’ve run workshops for 80 primary school pupils.

This past summer, Oracle Academy put on summer training camps in cooperation with the Croatian Education and Teacher Training Agency (this governmental agency is organizing professional development activities for teachers in primary and secondary schools in Croatia), again introducing middle and high school teachers to the basics of Java programming, much as I was in 2016. We successfully completed those trainings back in September and 30 attendees received their certificate of completion.

Oracle Academy: How do you structure your programming courses?

Dr. Frane Urem: Polytechnic of Šibenik has mapped four of the Oracle Academy courses to our formal curriculum. We offer our own Introduction to Databases course and the Oracle Academy Database Fundamentals course. Students can choose, and get the same credits for either one.

What can you tell us of your extra-curricular activities?

Dr. Frane Urem: Outside of the academic world, I enjoy mountaineering and have climbed most of the high spots in the Dinaric Alps of which there are many dozen. And with four kids, I also enjoy games such as basketball and street ball. My beautiful wife organizes it all and, guess what, she is a programmer too!

Thank you Dr. Frane Urem for your dedication and making an impact on your students!