New pressure on universities: Faculty inspection has begun

Four months since the students are at faculties entered into in Serbia blockade, the inspection supervision began higher education institutions, by order of the Ministry of Education.

In the letter that arrived last week to the faculties from the inspection supervision sector of the Ministry of Education, it was stated that the inspectors should prepare "a statement of the responsible person regarding the performance of higher education activities and the organization of lectures and other forms of teaching and the holding of exams in the 2024/2025 school year, with relevant documentation."

The decision of the professional body of the institution on the basis of which the teaching was interrupted, postponed or suspended, if it was made, is also required.

Dejan Roglić, dean of the Faculty of Chemistry in Belgrade, explains to "Vreme" that it is about "office supervision" and that "inspectors do not come to the faculty, but we send them everything by email".

He sent the requested documentation on Tuesday (March 25), and the Ministry of Education considers this step another pressure on the university.

"All the faculties of the University of Belgrade have received such a letter. It will be an interesting period of continued activity, because the University is also ready. We have hired law offices that will cover us for all actions that the ministry will undertake," Roglić told "Vreme".

"It's all the deans' fault"

He says that based on the letters that the faculty administrations received, it can be concluded that "everything is the fault of the deans and rectors".

"There is no fault of the Ministry of Education, which after four months of blockades remembered to ask for something from the faculty, without even contacting us before that, or asking for any information from us, or giving instructions for action. They stated that the dean was responsible for all of this. We left it to the lawyers to deal with it. The legal teams are dealing with the analysis, so we will see what happens next," Roglić told "Vreme".

As he adds, as far as he knows, no faculty has made a decision on the blockade, it was done by the students.

"Faculties cannot end the blockades - what should we do, enter empty amphitheatres and talk to nothing, enter empty laboratories and with whom should we do exercises? We have no influence on the blockades," adds Roglić.

And the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture in Belgrade, Vladan Bogdanović, told FoNet that the faculties were not the ones who made the decisions about the blockades, and he believes that this is serious pressure from the Ministry of Education on the faculties and causing internal conflicts within the University of Belgrade.

"We were brought before the fait accompli by the fact that the students started protests and blockades. We only supported the fulfillment of their demands and stood behind them with the aim of preserving peace at the faculty as much as possible and not causing any harm. We do not wonder about it," said Bogdanović.

The Ministry of Education announced that the inspection supervision will begin on March 25, and the "legality of actions in the work of higher education institutions" will be determined.

"By conducting these inspections, the Ministry of Education will strive to ensure full compliance with the Constitution and laws of Serbia and enable the realization of the rights of all actors in higher education, and first of all students," reads the statement, which once again calls on students in the blockade, as well as deans and rectors, not to deny the constitutionally guaranteed right to education to all other students, as well as teaching staff who want to continue teaching.

Canceled wages, reduced number of hours of scientific and research work, what is the next step?

Since the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, recently said that the state has decided that in the future "it will not reward non-workers" and that "professors at faculties who do nothing, except participate in blockades", will receive "potatoes", university professors did not receive a salary.

Minister of Education Slavica Đukić Dejanović told "Vreme" last week that the February salaries were paid according to the announcements.

"It was announced that for February they will be paid as much as they worked. The salary consists of two parts - the educational part and the part for scientific-research work. One working week has 40 hours, of which 20 hours are educational and 20 hours are scientific-research work", says Đukić-Dejanović, explaining that the first part of the salary covers scientific-research work for the entire month of February.

A few days later, on Monday (March 24), the resigned Government of Serbia passed a decree reducing the number of hours of scientific and research work to five, so according to the new calculation, 35 working hours of employees at higher education institutions go to the educational part, while five hours a week are scientific and research work.

"The decision was made that next month they could pay us 12,5 percent of the salary, that is their intention," the dean of the Faculty of Chemistry in Belgrade told "Vreme".

As he adds, the regulation is "nonsensical and passed illegally, because according to Article 17 of the Law on the Government, the outgoing Government does not have the authority to pass this type of regulation. Our legal teams will deal with it."

"Employees in the ministry should read the decree on norms and see the activities related to teaching that are carried out at the faculties - defense and preparation of doctoral dissertations, holding sessions of the teaching-scientific council, preparation of textbooks and preparation of teaching materials. Employees at the Faculty of Chemistry are there 40 hours a week. If so, let them give instructions that from the adoption of this Decree we have a five-hour work week. Let them write it down for us, because that's what they will pay us for," concludes Roglić.

Appeal to the Constitutional Court

Professor Miloš Pavlović, dean of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, told Nova.rs that the University of Belgrade will file a complaint with the Constitutional Court, because the resigned government is disrupting the higher education system.

"With the new regulation, the Technical Government has determined a different ratio of hours that we should spend in teaching compared to the number of hours that we spend in scientific and artistic achievement. And what they obviously do not know, or pretend not to know, is that all teachers, except regular professors, are employed for a fixed period of time and if they do not meet the prescribed standards in a period of three or five years, they cannot advance or renew their contract. The standards are rigorous, they must be fulfilled," said Pavlović.

As he explained, if the teacher has the obligation to spend more time in class than the accreditation allows, then he cannot fulfill the norm.

"A teacher can have a maximum of 12 hours a week, which is nine hours of work. For nine hours of teaching activity, he must spend at least the same amount of time in the preparation of that activity. That means 18 hours," Pavlović told Nova.rs.

However, with the new regulation, this program will be unfeasible.

"Now we need to spend 35 hours in classes, so how then can we fulfill the obligations of art or, in a larger number of faculties, scientific-research obligations and achieve any scientific progress?", he asked himself.

As he said, the regulation was passed "ad hoc, overnight, in order to punish teachers, without understanding what it means for higher education and what they are doing to it".

"The University of Belgrade will submit an initiative before the Constitutional Court regarding the unconstitutionality of this Regulation. However, we know who sits in that court, so the question remains as to how meaningful the initiative will be," said the Dean of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts.

Government repression

He added that what the resigned government is doing is not for the purpose of improvement but repression.

"The authorities do not hide that they are repressive. They seem to be telling us 'let's see you now, what are you going to do?' "Their idea is not to improve education and relations, but to punish. Their goal is to collapse state higher education, and to introduce it privately. For them, education is a commodity that should be sold, and not something that should raise this nation from a simple and primitive one to an advanced one," concludes Professor Pavlovic.

Source: Vreme/FoNet/Nova