Bar: Without help, at least 20 students

Elementary school "Yugoslavia" in Bar asked for 27 teaching assistants for children with special needs, but the competent Ministry of Education, without a written explanation, approved only seven.

This is what the President of the Municipal Board of the Education Union (OOSP) in Bar, Mićo Baltić, told "Vijesti".

"According to the notification I received from the members of the School Board from the Teachers' Council of Elementary School 'Yugoslavia' and from the school administration, the proposal for the act on the systematization of jobs required more assistants, but the competent Ministry approved only seven assistants without a written explanation. The school board sent a written elaboration of the Act on the systematization of workplaces, where it was explained how many children have a solution and what their problems are," claims Baltić.

However, the Ministry of Education claims that "the request to amend the act on systematization from the bar school has not yet been submitted to them".

They say that when the document is officially submitted, it will be taken into consideration as soon as possible.

The assistant must be next to the student

Baltić said that for some children with special educational needs, the decision strictly states that the assistant "must be with them all the time because of their specificities."

"Some of the children have a need to get away from the classroom or from vacation, and because of such situations the assistant must be next to the students", according to the president of the union.

According to him, a certain number of children with special educational needs can function even with the occasional presence of an assistant in class, "and this is indicated in the solution".

"According to the interpretation of the competent Ministry, an assistant is only technical assistance when entering and leaving the classroom. In practice, it is not like that, because not all categorized children are able to stay independently in the classroom next to other students," Baltić points out.

He warns that the assistants are "one class with one student, after which they go to the next one who has a solution, and then again to the next one, and no one benefits from that."

Many schools have the same problem, but the principals do not complain to the Ministry

The President of OOSP explained that the situation in other schools "is not problematic to this extent, but some schools have this or a similar problem of lack of a sufficient number of assistants".

"The primary school "Yugoslavia" has been granted the same number of assistants for several years, from six to seven, and the need was for 12 or at most 15 assistants. Now, for the first time, the number of students who, according to the decision, need an assistant is 27, but a larger number of executors is still not approved", said Baltić.

He believes that "the principals of some Montenegrin schools have the same problems, but due to the traditional policy of not holding grudges against the Ministry, they do not want to insist on a greater number of assistants, and therefore both teaching and educators suffer, and especially children in regular classes suffer".

Baltić also assesses that Montenegro currently has enough people who have completed the course for assistants.

"In my opinion, the problem is that there are no criteria for hiring teaching assistants, but people with a seven-day or two-week course receive a diploma that they are qualified to work with children with special needs. I think that the way of education and training of these people should be of higher quality and solved in a different way", he said.

Baltić pointed out that the disadvantage of the current method of categorization is that a smaller part of children with more severe diagnoses are sent to regular classes, and these children should attend classes in classes for children with special needs or in schools that specialize in certain, specific types of problems .

A special problem, as the president of the Bar Education Union points out, is that "children who cannot attend regular classes do not receive an assistant for the entire time they are in school."

"The other students lose the quality of teaching because the teacher or subject teacher must be physically present with the child, especially if the student shows signs of aggression or goes outside if someone is not with him," said Baltić.