Member of the URA Civic Movement Bozena Jelušić she announced that she will submit to the Assembly a proposal for changes to the General Law on Education and Training, with which she will request that school directors be elected by school boards, and not by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports, which is the case now.
As she announced, she will work on that proposal next week, with the Trade Union and the NGO sector.
Jelušić said that it is indisputable that the Law should have been improved, its changes were adopted at the end of May, but, according to her, it did not go in the desired direction.
"Precisely, the dismissals of school principals showed that... Principals should be elected by depoliticized and decentralized school boards," Jelušić told "Vijesta".
According to the current Law, the minister elects and dismisses directors of educational institutions.
Jelušić submitted the same proposal, in the form of an amendment, earlier this year, but, as she explains, she agreed to withdraw it until certain additions are made in agreement with the Trade Union.
She believes that school boards, which would include representatives of teachers, the Ministry, parents, trade unions, business partners and local communities, could elect school leaders in a credible and depoliticized manner.
"We already had such a system, but it was abandoned. With the centralization of the election of directors, which was roughly concreted in 2014, we got what is happening now through shifts, dismissals and appointments. It showed how rotten and unsustainable the system had become from within. That is why it is very important to return to those so-called "factory settings of the education system, which must not be in the hands of any political party per se, nor any political center of power, but above all in the hands of those who work in it," emphasizes Jelušić.
He reminds that in 2009, due to the Ministry's attempt to remove the director of the Cetinje High School, who was elected by the School Board, a forty-day strike by high school students broke out in that city.
"Minister of Education (Happy Škuletić) then resigned, and the system was centralized after that event, because it was shown that citizens, when they are given an institution that has healthy decision-making levers, will not always act as the political center wants. Now we have to return it again", says Jelušić.
This week, the Ministry of Education came under criticism from the opposition, NGOs, as well as part of the government, due to dismissals and appointments in the education system. For this reason, a protest was held in Podgorica, in front of the headquarters of the Ministry, which, among other things, demanded the resignation of the minister. Vesne Bratic.
The biggest storm was caused by the appointment of the teacher Rade Višnjić for the acting director of Elementary School "Yugoslavia" in Bar. She was appointed regardless of the fact that in January of last year, disciplinary proceedings were initiated against her because she assigned students to draw tricolors in class. Višnjić was fired in the fall, after inviting students to a prayer service at the Church of St. John Vladimir in Bar via a Viber group.
However, the day after she was appointed, Višnjić was relieved of her duties, because, as stated by the Ministry, "private materials of a personal but also obscene nature appeared".
Višnjić announced that she resigned from the position of acting director after receiving the appointment decision, due to pressure and because Minister Bratić "fell to uncivilized reactions".
The storm was also caused by the dismissal the day before yesterday of the former director of the Plužine Educational Center, who passed away on March 28 of this year. The Ministry apologized to the family of the deceased, stating that the omission was due to extensive work.
Jelušić says that everything that happened in the previous days was bad, but in a way it was "the end of the line".
"You could not, figuratively speaking, kill the system with one blow of Minister Bratić." You killed him earlier. This was just the final blow," emphasizes Jelušić.
Member of the Socialist People's Party and one of the proponents of the adopted amendments to the General Law on Education and Training, Dragan Ivanovic, he told "Vijesti" that the dismissals of school principals are criticized the most by those who worked and decided on their own, not allowing, as he stated, to criticize themselves and to ask them for an explanation as to why they act that way.
"Now there is a political story and pressure on Minister Bratić. There are omissions in the Ministry, but those who do make mistakes. We can make objections, but we hope that it will all be resolved on the fly. The minister has no bad intentions. She only wants to implement reforms, so that new staff will come to schools who will refresh education and raise these institutions to a higher level," he believes.
The Agency for the Prevention of Corruption (ASK) warned this week that there is a provision in the General Law on Education that gives the Minister of Education the discretion to choose and dismiss principals.
"Which can lead to misuse of education, damage the entire education system, especially considering that the professional staff in education is crucially important for the development of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values necessary for the democratic culture of a society", according to the opinion of the director of ASK Jelena Perović.
Democrat MP and also one of the proponents of the adopted amendments to the education law, Vladimir Martinovic, said that if the Ministry of Education works outside the applicable regulations, they know the procedures before the competent courts.
Responding to the opposition's accusations of revanchism in education, he says that the Democratic Party of Socialists (DPS) and the Social Democrats (SD), "while saying that more than 200-300 school principals were appointed and that this is revanchism", admitted that they appointed principals party key.
"I would like to hear which official of Democratic Montenegro became the director of a school. According to my information, we do not have officials who have become directors. On the other hand, in the previous period you had quite a number of directors who had to have a membership card of DPS and SD. But not only that. On the eve of every election, and we publicly showed and proved that, they had to be donors to DPS. They probably justified their mandates, which in a large number of cases were illegal, because we have school principals who held those positions more than twice, which is contrary to the current regulations," he points out for "Vijesti".
Martinović, speaking about the omissions made by the Ministry in the previous days, said that he had not heard that anyone praised the correction of mistakes.
"Let the public say when DPS and its coalition partners corrected any mistake. The Ministry of Education was previously headed by Mr. Migo Stijepović and we all know very well what was done and how it was done. And let's not talk about later ministers... That's why the DPS has the least right to forgive anyone's mistakes," concludes Martinović.
According to the Law, a person who has at least VII1 level of the national qualification framework and meets the requirements for a classroom teacher, i.e. a teacher of a compulsory subject or a professional associate (psychologist, pedagogue...) can be elected as the principal of a primary school.
This means that the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports violates the law when it appoints educators from secondary schools, who teach subjects that are not taught in primary schools, as acting principals.
As previously confirmed by "Vijesti" interlocutors, this has so far happened in at least two primary schools in Podgorica, and the most vivid example is the decision of the department of Vesna Bratić to appoint the acting principal of the elementary school "Savo Pejanović" in Podgorica. Zoran Đukić, teacher of the mechanical group of subjects.
Đukić taught at the "Ivan Uskoković" Secondary Vocational School in Podgorica, and was appointed to replace the current director, Biljana Krivokapić.
Control hearing Bratić on July 30
The Committee for Education, Culture, Science and Sports scheduled a hearing on July 30 of Minister Bratić regarding her appointment in the education system.
The initiative for the hearing was supported by six members of the opposition and MP URA Božena Jelušić, while six representatives of the ruling coalition were against it.
The initiator of the initiative, SD MP Damir Šehović, said that in education, a classic purge and reckoning with the unfit was carried out, and that, as he stated, their individual work results were not taken into account.
The leader and deputy of the Right of Montenegro, Marko Milačić, said that he was not against hearings, but that in the case of Bratić, "selectivity and double standards" prevail. He added that Bratić is a minister who does not tolerate any pressure, and that her biggest sin is that she is a Serb, "and that she cannot be forgiven from various sides".
DPS MP Dragutin Papović stated that three-quarters of the current government supports the Chetnik ideology, which is why, according to him, it is a scandalous issue that it is a problem for someone who supports that ideology to be at the head of an educational institution.
Demos MP Miodrag Lekić announced that he too would have a lot of questions for Bratić, especially regarding her four portfolios, but also for some of her "not the happiest statements".
Democratic Front MP Jelena Božović asserted that during the mandate of Damir Šehović, education suffered the greatest damage.
"It was known how to hire, and there were yours and the hawks of the DPS, who carried out national and political discrimination against those who did not support your coalition at the time," said Božović.
She claims that as a teacher of Serbian language and literature, she could not find a job.
With the centralization of the election of directors, which was roughly concreted in 2014, we got what is happening now through shifts, dismissals and appointments. That showed how rotten and unsustainable the system has become from the inside," Jelušić believes
They regret their recklessness
The Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports apologized to the family and friends of the late director of the Educational Center in Plužine, Gordana Radović, for what they said was an inadvertent error by an official during the preparation of the decision.
The Ministry announced that the omission was due to excessive work on the preparation of as many as 448 solutions.
They note that they do not want to justify the error of the employees, but indicate the absence of any evil intention and that only the quantity of work had an effect on the resulting recklessness.
"We are especially sorry for the inconvenience if we consider that we have only heard the best about Gordana, not only in the context of professional work and engagement, but also as a good and noble person," the Ministry of Education stated.
The department said that they could not correct the mistake, but that they could express deep regret for the recklessness.
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