The education system in Montenegro has not received enough attention from the state and the system, and essential changes are necessary in the short term, as assessed in the interviews conducted by the Association of Parents and the MINA agency as part of the Parents Between Facts and Opinions project.
Minister of Education Miomir Vojinović, speaking about the problem of overbooking of schools, stated that it primarily refers to city schools.
"On the other hand, we have a huge number of rural areas where school premises are empty", said Vojinović and said that the problem of overbooking is systemic and that it cannot be solved by the Ministry of Education alone.
He said that these are problems of a decade-long nature, but that the process of solving objective problems must be entered into.
"We have several schools that are being built, and they should have been completed by now," added Vojinović.
He stated that Podgorica is expected to get four new schools in the near future - three for primary education and a gymnasium.
As he said, educators deserve a better position and an adequate reward for their enormous effort and work.
Vojinović believes that the quality of textbooks in Montenegro is on a par with the quality of textbooks in the surrounding area.
Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Nikšić, Saša Milić, assessed that the importance of preschool education has been somewhat recognized in Montenegro in the last ten years, but that kindergartens are still overbooked, educational staff are demotivated, and allocations from the state budget for this area are insufficient.
"If we know that the brain develops up to the age of six/seven, as well as other functions, not to mention the elements of social and emotional development that get their foundations in the preschool period, I think that we as a society still treat preschool education inadequately," he said. Milić.
He assessed that it was time to stop writing strategies and other planning documents that are not implemented.
Milić pointed out that a large number of cities in Montenegro did not even have nursery schools until recently, which shows the attitude towards the complete system of preschool education and upbringing.
He said that compared to 2015/16. In 36, a XNUMX percent increase in the number of children was recorded, but this was not accompanied by an increase in infrastructure, personnel, and allocations from the budget for preschool education.
"This means that we often deal with numbers. I think it's time to stop waving numbers around. Does this high percentage mean improvement or at least preservation of quality, or, in my deep conviction, a decline in the quality of work," Milić added.
Milić believes that the quality of work in preschool educational institutions has not been improved, and that the standards provided for in the planning documents are often violated and meaningless.
According to the Ministry of Education, more than 24 thousand children attend preschool public and private institutions in Montenegro.
Coverage of children aged three to six is around 77 percent, and it is noted that the growth trend has been present for some time, while the goal of the strategy concerning this area is coverage of 95 percent.
The professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in Nikšić, Biljana Maslovarić, said that it is necessary to depoliticize the education system in Montenegro and bring responsible people to the head of the Ministry of Education.
"But we don't have the will and, I'm afraid, the awareness of where we are. This has been going on for many years, people have a captive mind. We know why this happens - due to the absence of critical thinking, and behind all this is the economic status," said Maslovarić.
According to her, she doesn't have time anymore, but she doesn't want to panic.
The editor at the Institute for Textbooks and Teaching Aids, Nađa Durković, said that the Institute plans to change textbooks for the lowest grades of schools, if the subject program is not changed.
She said that the education system is set up so that students learn the way teachers question and evaluate them.
"A system in which values will be recognized is desirable. That the system discovers the valuable and good, and not that they prove something to someone," added Durković.
Speaking about the criticism of the quality of the textbooks, Durković said that in the last 19 years that she has been working at the Institute, about 20 officials have received letters criticizing individual solutions in the textbooks, most of which were unfounded.
When asked whether the digitization of textbooks will be continued, Durković indicated that the Government has accepted the Strategy for Digitization of Education until 2027, and that the Institute has a very active role and is thinking about what to do next in that field.
Durković believes that digital content will be useful in inclusive teaching, if it is well conceived and the right content is chosen and the way in which it should be done dynamically.
When asked if there are plans to create textbooks for children with developmental disabilities, Durković said that the Institute is also thinking about this issue, but that it is difficult, taking into account the specific disabilities of some children, to create something that is useful in teaching.
The Director of the Examination Center, Dragana Dmitrović, said that sometimes it happens that the professors do not have enough time in the classroom to evaluate and make a complete check of students' knowledge and that this is the result of summative evaluation.
Dmitrović, speaking about the transition to another evaluation system, said that one cannot suddenly switch from summative to formative evaluation and that perhaps it would be best to find a balance between formative and summative methods.
Formative assessment is the regular and planned collection of data on student progress during the process of acquiring knowledge. Unlike summative assessment, which is focused on results, formative assessment is the evaluation of the learning process itself.
When asked if there is hope that the results of the PISA test will be better than the previous ones, she said that she would not prejudge the results of the PISA test from last year and that they are secret until the day of publication.
When asked if the number of Luča is realistic and corresponds to the results shown by the PISA tests, Dmitrović said that this is a question for all subjects in education.
As she said, the results of that testing may not always be the most realistic, because students sometimes do not complete the entire test, they also switched to a digital form, but that they are definitely usable.
Dmitrović emphasized that she hopes that everyone will understand that the most important thing is knowledge, not grades.
When asked about the comments that it happened that areas that the children did not study during school appeared on the tests, Dmitrović said that it cannot be said about this as a rule.
"It happened during the corona era, because you know that the curriculum is implemented uniformly, but the teacher has the ability to make a schedule of teaching units on a monthly basis, and it happened that some schools realized some areas, and some did not, and then it happened", added Dmitrović.
The Acting Director of the Institute for Education (ZZŠ), Zoja Bojanić Lalović, believes that assessment in Montenegrin schools should serve the purpose of motivating students and improving the quality of teaching.
She pointed out that the fact that the state of society reflects on education should not be ignored.
"We need to find a way so that what is bad in society is not reflected in the state of education. Therefore, at this moment, we need to urgently approach analyses," said Bojanić Lalović.
Bojanić Lalović, responding to the question whether the assessment reflects the real situation and what should be changed in that part, said that assessment, as a process in teaching, should be aimed at the student and motivate him.
According to her, the assessment should be in the function of student motivation and in the function of improving the quality of teaching.
Bojana Lalović assessed that teachers do their job responsibly.
"We witnessed, especially when the covid crisis hit, how quickly the teacher adapts," said Bojanić Lalović.
When asked to comment on the fact that teachers often complain that they are "overwhelmed" by the administration and that they have many obligations that make it difficult for them to focus exclusively on imparting knowledge, she said that a teacher must plan and that without a valid plan one cannot talk about quality teaching .
Within the project, which is financed by the European Union in Montenegro and the Program Office of the Council of Europe in Podgorica, the Parents Association and the MINA agency deal with topics in the field of education, which should help parents gain a clearer picture of the problems they often point to.
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