The education union asked the members of school boards from the ranks of teachers not to vote for changes to the statutes of elementary schools, which impose on employees the obligation of three additional hours of direct work with students during the week, in extended stays and with children with special educational needs.
President of the Trade Union Radomir Božović He told "Vijesta" that the Law on Basic Education and Upbringing envisages this activity as a possibility, while the proposed amendments to the Statute make additional work with children in extended stays and with special educational needs mandatory, and teachers take over the job of educators. He claims that the entire procedure was non-transparent and that the Ministry of Education sent the proposal to the schools during the winter vacation, so the school boards in some institutions have already changed the statutes and sent them to that government department for harmonization.
"There was no public discussion, nor were unions, teachers' councils and employees informed. According to the proposed changes, the number of hours is increased according to the statute, not according to the law," warned Božović.
In the letter of the Union of Education, addressed to the presidents of municipal boards and union organizations of elementary schools, it is written that according to Article 79 of the Law on Elementary Education, teachers are obliged to, in addition to the norm of hours, in order to achieve better success in mastering the educational program, achieve two more hours of direct work with students, while the schedule of the remaining working hours, within the forty-hour working week, is determined by the school's statute.
"Those two hours of direct work with students are additional and supplemental teaching. Everything else, which represents direct work with students, is not prescribed by the Law, so neither are these two provisions from the school's statute, which provide for work in an extended stay (one hour) and work with children with special educational needs (two classes), are not in accordance with Article 79", the letter states.
Yesterday, Božović told "Vijesta" that the work of subject teachers in the extended stay for first and second grade students is not in accordance with their professional qualifications. He asked how, for example, a biology teacher would teach children with special educational needs their mother tongue.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Education replied to "Vijesta" that in accordance with their responsibilities, they prepared and delivered to primary schools a copy of the decision on amendments to the statute, which specified the remaining working hours of teachers within the forty-hour work week, i.e. the obligations and activities that the teacher is obliged to in that time he realizes. They claim that they did this in order to harmonize the statutes of primary schools with the Law on Amendments to the General Law on Education and the Law on Amendments to the Law on Primary Education, which reduced the standard for Montenegrin-Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian language subjects. and literature and mathematics from 18 to 16 hours weekly.
The Ministry said that within the framework of forty-hour working hours, an hour of work in extended stay is included weekly, bearing in mind that the school, in accordance with its capabilities, in the best interest of students and parents, organizes extended stay for students of the first, and exceptionally also of the second grade. .
"The rest of the teacher's working time defined in this way results from the legally established possibility for the school to organize an extended stay, and that within the framework of the extended stay students are provided with various activities, including studying, doing homework and performing other obligations in accordance with the school's rules," he writes. in response.
The Ministry assessed that there is no objection that the remaining working hours of teachers defined in this way are not in accordance with the law, since the proposed changes to the statute did not change the norm of teacher hours, but only prescribed the schedule of remaining working hours within the forty-hour work week based on the authority of the prescribed By the Law on Basic Education and Upbringing.
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