The Motušić Family’s Vision
for PKG European School Zagreb
Most schools prepare children for exams. Some prepare them for university. A few even prepare them for a first job. But how many prepare them for a world that does not yet fully exist? For the age of artificial intelligence that has already begun?
PKG European School Zagreb is built around that very idea. This is not a school that simply delivers a curriculum. It is a school that helps young people learn how to think, adapt, create, and stay grounded in a time changing faster than any of us can predict. Automation, technologies that are already reshaping the rules, and professions that do not yet have names. The children sitting in classrooms today will live in that world. The only question is whether they will be ready for it.
That is precisely why PKG is now led by the Motušić family. Not as investors who bought a school, but as parents who went looking for the kind of school they wanted for their own children, could not find it, and decided to build it themselves.
PKG carries something that no new school can create overnight: thirty years of presence, experience and trust. The mark left by Professor Zlatko Šešelj and the Šešelj family remains an important part of the school’s identity and deserves respect. It is precisely because of those foundations that PKG today has the seriousness and credibility on which it can build further.
But this project is not about returning to the past. It is about building a new school. A school for today’s children, today’s families, and a world that has changed.
That is why the move from a Private Classical Schooll to a European School was not a formality or a cosmetic adjustment. It was a clear expression of a new direction. A direction that respects the best of the past, but does not try to live from it. A direction that understands that thirty years of tradition matter most when they become the foundation for something new, modern and ambitious.
PKG is not repackaging the old school under a new name. It is building a new school on valuable foundations. A school with a broader outlook, a more contemporary approach and far greater readiness for the world in which today’s children are growing up. Because the true value of tradition is not in repeating the past, but in building something better on solid foundations.
There is a profound difference between a school managed by an institution and a school led by a family that pours itself into it every single day.
Andreana and Boris Motušić do not lead PKG from behind an office door. They are present. They bring their own experience, values and energy into the life of the school. Their daughters are also part of the story, naturally contributing the perspective of the very generation this school is being built for, along with their instinct for aesthetics, digital culture and the atmosphere of a space.
That presence can be felt. In the tone of the school. In the way students are treated. In an ambition that is not performative, but personal. PKG is not an anonymous institution. It is a living community, with real people behind every decision.
This vision was also recognised by the Aras family, long standing family friends of the Motušićs. Dunko Aras joined the project as an investor and co owner with a 20 percent stake. This is not a casual financial investment. It is an expression of trust from people who know the Motušić family personally and believe in their vision enough to attach their own name to it.
Andreana holds a doctorate and is an educator and entrepreneur with more than twenty years of experience in education, curriculum development and international projects. Her academic journey took her through the University of Tampa and Whittier College in the United States, Uppsala University in Sweden, Sorbonne University in Paris, Université Marc Bloch in Strasbourg, and UCL, University College London, where she also taught.
Over the course of her career, she has worked with educational institutions across the European Union on curriculum modernisation and inclusion projects, and has collaborated with major technology companies such as Microsoft and Oracle, as well as public institutions including the European Commission and the European Parliament.
What makes Andreana especially valuable to PKG is her ability to connect high academic standards, contemporary learning methods and a very real understanding of children, parents and school life. She does not speak about education in the abstract. She lives it.
As Director and President of the School Board, Andreana stands behind every key decision the school makes. She leads PKG’s overall development, from identity and curriculum to the daily life of the school. She is present, involved and accessible. Her role is to ensure that PKG has a clear direction, a modern curriculum and a vision that is not an empty phrase on paper, but something felt every day, in every classroom and in every conversation with a student or parent.
Boris Motušić graduated from the prestigious University of Tampa in the United States, a pioneer in Computer Information Systems architecture, whose alumni now help shape the global technology industry. He brings with him twenty eight years of experience in digital transformation and international business.
He founded United Experts and has led projects for Microsoft, BNP Paribas, Coca Cola, ABB, Panasonic, PwC, Best Western Hotels and a range of other global brands. These were not projects where improvisation was an option. They demanded depth, precision and strategic clarity.
As Director of Business Development at PKG, Boris leads the business side of the school, its growth strategy, partnerships, international network, marketing and digital transformation. But even more importantly, he understands exactly how the world is changing. He knows which skills young people will need in ten or twenty years, and how high the cost will be if they do not receive them in time.
Andreana and Boris did not begin with a business plan. They began as parents. Parents who had lived in several countries, worked with some of the best in their fields, and knew exactly what kind of education they wanted for their children. When they could not find it in Zagreb, they did not settle. They chose to create it themselves.
They brought everything into this project: a deep understanding of education and child development, significant international experience, first hand knowledge of how leading global institutions and companies operate, and something that cannot be bought or hired, genuine personal commitment that does not end when the office lights go out.
Boris is Croatian. Andreana is Bulgarian. They met in the United States. They have lived in Florida, California, Sofia, Zadar, Paris, Strasbourg, Stockholm, London and Zagreb. Their extended family reaches as far as Peru. In their home, languages, cultures, habits and worldviews mix naturally.
At their home parties, families from Croatia, Bulgaria, England, France, Peru, Madagascar, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Belgium, Spain, Italy and the United States gather with complete ease, to name only some. A small world under one Zagreb roof.
That is why PKG does not treat multiculturalism as decoration. Here it means genuine openness to languages, cultures, faiths, identities and different life paths. It means a school where it is entirely natural for a child to prepare at the same time for life in Croatia and for an international future. A place where a student can feel fully themselves and fully open to the world.
When the Motušić family returned from London, they found a different Zagreb. More open. More diverse. A city where more people from different countries now live, and where more Croatians with rich international experience are returning home.
But this change is not only relevant to families with international biographies. It matters just as much to Croatian families who have never lived abroad, but can clearly see that the world around them has become global. Today people work, collaborate and think internationally even without leaving Zagreb. They know that languages, confidence, breadth of perspective and an understanding of global realities now matter enormously.
That is why PKG European School Zagreb is not only for expatriates or returning families. It is equally for local families who want their children to remain deeply connected to Croatia while also being ready for a world that has long since become global.
And that is also why PKG functions as an international school regardless of whether a student follows the Croatian or the English language pathway. Its international spirit is not reserved for one language or one stream. It runs through the entire school. And for children who arrive with limited Croatian, or none at all, PKG helps them learn the language and truly integrate. Because being part of Croatia and understanding the country you live in matters just as much as being open to the world.
This is the first generation of children that will graduate into a world where artificial intelligence can already write essays, analyse data and translate text into fifty languages faster than they can finish breakfast. But this is only the beginning. AI is already transforming medicine, law, finance, education, the creative industries and almost every other aspect of human work and life. Change that once took a generation can now happen within a single year.
In such a world, a school that simply transfers information becomes obsolete. What cannot be automated is character. Resilience. Curiosity. The ability to examine complexity from more than one angle. The ability to collaborate with people who think differently. Creativity that does not come from a template. And the inner stability that helps a young person find their own path in a time when so much cannot be predicted in advance.
This is what PKG seeks to develop. Not instead of knowledge, but beyond it.
PKG does not believe that everything important can be learned from a textbook. That is why outstanding guest speakers, learning beyond the classroom, field trips, research projects, student entrepreneurship, interactive experiences, study travel and international exposure are a natural part of growing up here. Not brochure material. Not a bonus for the especially motivated. Simply part of how the school works.
Students learn from teachers who are not only trained educators, but people with real experience beyond the classroom.
Communication, critical thinking, presenting ideas and using technology meaningfully are just as important. Because this school wants students not only to know the answer, but to understand the question, the context and the world in which that knowledge will one day have to be used.
A school cannot give every answer for the world ahead. But it can do something more important: help a student discover what truly moves them and find joy in learning.
When a young person finds their passion, education stops being an obligation. It becomes a source of strength. An inner anchor. Something that guides them, shapes them, and stays with them for life.
In a world that is constantly changing, that may be the greatest gift a school can give.
Andreana and Boris see clearly what many parents also see: that children today are struggling with focus, concentration, emotional pressure, screen dependency, insecurity and demands coming from every direction.
In such a world, a school that concerns itself only with grades misses the point.
That is why healthy development and the whole child sit at the heart of PKG. This is a school where a child can learn, but also breathe. A place where they feel safe, seen and respected. Where health, relationships, belonging, personal growth and academic development are all part of the same story. Because generations of research point to the same truth: children who feel emotionally secure learn better, advance faster and go further.
One student may dream of medicine. Another of architecture. Another of law, design, professional sport career, biology, writing, entrepreneurship or something that does not even have a name yet. PKG aims to be a place where all of those paths have room to unfold.
One of the school’s greatest strengths is the way it approaches each student as an individual. It does not begin with the assumption that every child should follow the same path at the same pace. It begins with different questions. Who is this child? What drives them? Where are their strengths? Where do they need support? What are they aspiring to become?
That does not make the education less demanding. Quite the opposite. It makes it more personal, more precise and more intelligently directed.
Growing up today often includes travel, serious commitments in sport or the arts, internationally mobile families, or simply a rhythm of life that does not fit neatly into the rigid frame of a traditional timetable.
PKG does not see this as a problem. It sees reality and opportunity. Education can be more flexible, more intelligent and more human without lowering standards. That means recognising the individual circumstances of each student and responding to them with quality, structure and understanding. It means giving every child the chance to develop their full potential within the real conditions of their own life.
PKG does not want to be a cold elite school reserved only for the wealthiest or for academic superstars. But it does not want to be a school for everyone either.
It is a school for families looking for quality, meaning and a healthy atmosphere. For students who want to grow. Who are motivated, respectful of others and ready to be part of a community where people support one another.
It is not a place for passivity, resistance to change or a lack of desire to move forward. A truly good school cannot be everything to everyone. But for the families it is built for, it can mean everything.
The Motušić family’s vision does not end with one school. Their aim is to build one of the most compelling educational stories in the city and in the country. But they also want to use Zagreb as a place from which to share ideas, practice and transformative energy much more widely across Europe. Not for prestige, but because a good school can be the beginning of a much larger change in society.
A school with a clear vision. A school that brings together Croatia and the world, knowledge and character, ambition and healthy development.
For parents who want more than a school.
For children who need more than a system.
For families who understand that the future demands something new.
