Software tester formal education in Croatia

I attended Viaqa 12, Croatian software testers conference. Conference topic was ‘Software testers education in Croatia’. As I have been a software tester for twelve years, conference organizers invited me to participate in round table discussion on that topic. Other participants were Zeljko Filipin, owner of the first Croatian software testing start up company and man that has a great experience with testing the web applications, Tomislav Buza via Skype, he writes on his popular blog about his usability testing of various web applications, and dr. Valentina Kirinic from Foi,  professor that teaches students about software testing.
When I finished my formal education in 1997, there was no any subject about software testing at my faculty Fer. Everything that I learned about testing was self learning, and I started to do that when I got a question from one of my colleges from work: ‘Have you ever read any book about software testing?’ So I started with following books:

• How to Break Software: A Practical Guide to Testing, James Whittaker, 2002
• Lessons learned in software testing: a context-driven approach, Cem Kaner, James Bach, Bret Pettichord, 2001

Those books were a mind twister for me! They were the root point for gaining the software testing knowledge,  because through the authors twitter connections, I found about other great testers. The important thing is that I practiced the knowledge in my daily work, and based on that I know that I am on a right path.
Thanks to Zeljko, Bret Pettichord attended Viaqa 2011 and I had a great pleasure to met him. After the confernce sessions, we talked over a beer at pub Medvedgrad, and Bret explained to us, actually presented his test report (orally), the great Northeast blackout of 2003. At that moment I comprehended what is software tester. James Bach is a software testing legend, and why is that you can check in his lecture on software testing. His video Steve McQueen Consulting Software Tester, just added more comprehension on what is software tester.   
I attended Rapid Software Testing course, held by Michael Bolton, choosing that course based exclusively on Michael’s writing at his blog. For me Michael’s blog is one of the best blogs, not just from the field of software testing. I don not know how much time does he spend on every blog post, but how he puts his thoughts into the words is just amazing. And those thoughts are the gold for every tester.  
So I was very interested to hear what do professors from Foi teach kids about software testing. I got a clue, based on the software testers education topic discussions form other great testers. So my fear was confirmed, a lot about standardization and maturity models. I asked do they teach them some  practical testing, and the answer was that there are 30 hours of testing practice. They give them assignement to test some web application, based on the some testing standard. No guidance at all. And this is bad. This is the reason why fresh students have fear of software testing.
The good thing is that Foi professors were part of the round table. They listened what others said. They staid to the end of the lighting talks.


We had following lighting talks:

• @kisasondi about Security fuzzy testing
• @karlosmid  Bela for testers, game of set.
• @zeljkofilipin about watir test automation
• and one exceptional student gave his view about education process at Foi.

At the end of lighting talk, one student, that is doing his final diploma work about testing education, approached to me and requested some materials. I gave him great presentation from testing conference Lets Test 2012 with title ‘So you think you can test’.


As a conclusion I will state my goal. To bring any of mentioned great testers to speak in front of Foi students about software testing. To show Foi students  how does practical testing looks like at their 30 practical hours of software testing course.