Compliance analysis of the school chairs and tables with the pupils' needs.

The European standard EN 1729, proposing a new approach regarding the design, dimensions, measurements and research of the school table and chair, has been adopted by the Croatian Standards Institute (HZN) as a standard valid in the Republic of Croatia. The tender dossier for the furnishment of schools prepared by the town and local Education, Culture and Sports Departments, and financed by the competent Ministry, states the necessary dimensions of the furniture in accordance with the afore-mentioned standard. This paper explores the compliance of the school table and chair dimensions in the elementary school classrooms with the recommended dimensions stated in the standard, as well as the implementation of the EN 1729 standard by the Croatian manufacturers of classroom furniture, in order to establish whether the furniture meets the necessary recommendations and by that the pupils' needs as well. The results point to the existence of discrepancies in the functional dimensions in all recorded types of furniture, as well as labelling and instructions which are an integral part of the standard. They also indicate that a large number of respondents (fr=41.67%) is not aware that, according to the tender dossier, public institutions in the Republic of Croatia are obliged to order furniture in accordance with the EN standards, and that 50.00% of the respondents do not abide by the standards while developing and manufacturing the classroom furniture. The paper calls the expert from numerous interdisciplinary fields, and specially the manufacturers, designers, architects and constructors engaged in the activities of designing, manufacturing and furnishing the educational institutions, to cooperate and pay attention to meeting the parameters prescribed by the HRN EN 1729-1 standard in terms of compliance of the functional dimensions, new concepts that have been recommended as well as labelling the products, in order to replace the old, unsuitable furniture with the new, health-wise suitable furniture, and to create positive terms regarding the competitiveness at the local and foreign market and high quality furnishment of the educational institutions.