Municipality of Žalec

The Municipality of Žalec lies in a windswept area of the busy, fertile lower Savinjska valley. The mainly low-lying countryside, with a population of 20,000, enables an orientation towards farming, service activities and tourism. The most celebrated destinations for excursions are the Roman necropolis in Šempeter, the Novo Celje manor house, the Plevna mansion and the wealth of ecclesiastical and farm architecture. Žalec alone has organised hop-growing and fire brigade museums, as well as the birth house of the composer Risto Savina, which also houses the Oscar Kogoj arts salon. The age structure of the population is reasonably favourable, but the level of education of residents is unsatisfactory. Some 17% of employees have not completed primary school, and a further 33% have only primary school or incomplete secondary school. These two groups combined account for half of the whole population. Given the level of education, structural employment and economic restructuring, a long-term orientation towards the promotion of learning and securing educational programmes is absolutely essential. Fortunately, the local community is aware of this, and the award was presented to the local authority for its exceptional concern for the establishment of lifelong learning, for securing the required infrastructure intended for adult education, for its long-term, financially supported plan to improve the quality of life in the municipality, and for its exemplary model of partnership cooperation intended to resolve the lack of education, employment, self-employment, information and advice.