Less than a month ago, Serbian educators were in front of the government and demanded that the Criminal Code be changed urgently, in order to curb violent students.
"The last straw", they said then, was it case in Bačka Palanka when a student beat a teacher in class and caused him serious physical injuries.
However, the glass continued to overflow, and the source of the violence is, obviously, with the parents. On Thursday, two female teachers were beaten in elementary schools in Belgrade.
She beat the biology teacher of Elementary School "Jovan Dučić". the mother of a fifth grader because of her grades. While they are a teacher from "Svetog Sava" was attacked by both parents of her student after returning from recreational classes.
Teachers wash the walls.
The President of the Belgrade School Union, Snežana Romandić, tells "Vreme" that the attention of the whole society is needed.
"I have been working in a school for 30 years, the pressure on teachers is increasing year by year." This is just the tip of the iceberg. You have everyday situations where teachers do not report bullying and where principals cover up cases", says Romandić and adds that apparently we have not learned anything after May 3.
She recalls that in the past, when a child wrote a derogatory term for a teacher on the school wall, he would be punished and expelled from school. Then the parents would come to apologize.
"Now the teachers are washing that wall", says Romandić, and that students of younger and younger ages are starting to cause problems.
"At the same time, their parents are young people, who grew up in the nineties and obviously learned that it is normal to enter school with the question 'do you know who I am'?" Without the support of institutions, we can only put out fires, and nothing fundamentally changes," she says.
What would happen if a politician was attacked?
Romandić adds that the Government and everyone in the state leadership should send a clear message that violence must be sanctioned and that it must not be allowed in any way.
The unions of educators will have a meeting in the Government today, which was previously scheduled regarding the changes to the Criminal Code.
"The incidents that happened will definitely be a topic that will be discussed with the authorities so that anything can be discussed," says Romandić.
She also warns that due to the general atmosphere in society, no one wants to work in school anymore.
"Besides the small earnings, your job is as risky as being a taxi driver, so anyone can attack you." Although you must not touch the taxi driver", says Romandić and explains that the authorities did not do even half of what they said they would do. The question is what would they do if a politician was attacked in this way.
"Are we so ignorant that no one from the top could address the public and at least apologize to our families?" says Romandić.
Fines alone are not enough.
Measures for the prevention of violence in schools that have been taken so far they did not show results.
After the incident in Trstenik, when the students slipped the teacher's chair and broadcast it all on social networks, several educational laws and regulations were amended.
The Law on the Basics of the Education System - ZOSOV, the Law on Primary Education and the Law on Secondary Education were amended.
Larger ones were also introduced fines for parents, and proficiency as a numerical grade was introduced from the second grade and is included in the average.
After mass murder in May of last year at "Vladislav Ribnikar" Elementary School, the police began to secure all schools in Serbia before, during and after the end of classes.
Romandić says that we cannot achieve anything with only punishments, but that we really have to work on prevention and general education of society about what school actually means.
"The mother who attacked the teacher is obviously in some kind of problem, as soon as she 'repented' her life story and blamed the teacher for her problems," says Romandić.
On the other hand, he adds, preppers are in charge.
Parents from Elementary School "Jovan Dučić" send support to teachers
The Council of Parents of Elementary School "Jovan Dučić" invited all parents to gather in front of the school on Friday at 17:XNUMX p.m. to show first of all the children, but also many parents, that they are against violence.
"The Council of Parents wants to send a message of support to teachers." And these things should be recognized and paid attention to. In the school where I work, I begin to feel the anxiety of the parents that now every change they make will be met with a knife. For years, trenches have been dug between teachers and parents", says Romandić.
He also adds that violence against teachers is so frequent that educators do not have time to follow up on what is happening to the perpetrators.
"Do we know what happened to the students who pulled out the teacher's chair?" asks Romandić and concludes that greater public attention is necessary because otherwise one news about an attack on teachers will simply run over the other. And that's where it ends.
