More than 90.000 primary and secondary school students returned to their classrooms yesterday, and the first major break - vacation, will start earlier than in previous years - on December 27.
The second semester, "Vijesti" learns, begins on January 20, 2025, and this school year will have 183 working days, three more than before.
It is, the newsroom was told, about the break that students had in previous years between the first and second classification periods - the first days of November.
If the MPs in the Parliament of Montenegro again support the Proposal for Amendments to the General Law on Education tomorrow, the 2024/2025 school year. year will have two semesters. The Assembly adopted that regulation in August, but the President Jakov Milatovic he did not sign.
From the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, which he heads Anđela Jakšić Stojanović, it was previously announced that the School Calendar will be adopted "at the beginning of the school year".
"School administrations will receive detailed instructions, given that the new diaries in accordance with the change in the number of classification periods will be printed only next year. A tender should be announced in January", a source from the Ministry told "Vijesta".
In that department, meetings were held with the directors of the institutions last week, the editors were told, in order to explain to them the way of functioning until the creation of new diaries, but also to clarify doubts regarding more working days compared to previous years.
The schools told "Vijesta" yesterday that the diaries have not yet been delivered, and by 15 p.m. yesterday, the administration had not received the announced instructions.
Dozens of buildings in a new guise
Spasoje Ostojić from the Ministry of Education specified that yesterday about 70.000 elementary school students and about 27.000 high school students returned to the classrooms.
Ostojić said in "Colors of the morning" of "Vijesti" television that dozens of buildings have been reconstructed since the beginning of the year, and that the works were intensified during the summer vacation.
"We believe that we have prepared surprises for students in many schools - almost 70 facilities have more pleasant conditions. Some students will finally have heating systems, some will have more organized classrooms, toilets, and above all we have solved the main problems concerning basic things - roofs, facades, carpentry,..." said Ostojić.
Speaking about the construction of the new building of the "Vladimir Nazor" elementary school in Podgorica, which was demolished three years ago because it was not safe for the students, he said that the work is going according to plan.
"There are no unforeseen circumstances and we believe that it will be handed over to the students for use at the end of February next year," he emphasized and added that "a tender has been announced for the main developer of the project for the future school in City Quarter, while the work continues in Bar, Tivat's Radovići settlement... ".
Ostojić emphasized that from the beginning of the year until June, IT equipment worth 6,3 million euros was delivered to schools.
"From the beginning of September, the delivery of equipment worth 500.000 euros will begin... In this school year, schools are equipped with about 60 percent of the equipment needed for ideal teaching conditions," Ostojić said.
Common to the best model of director election
Amendments to the General Law on Education and Training, in addition to the plan that the school year has two classification periods instead of four - semesters, also provided that the selection of principals would return to the competence of the Minister of Education.
President Milatović returned the regulation to the parliament, pointing out that the new Law on Amendments to the General Law on Education "introduces a bad practice, because school principals will be elected along party lines and will be subject to party quotas and trade".
"Given that the education system is one of the most important pillars of our society, putting it back under political control is a step backwards. Let me emphasize that the Law was amended without prior public discussion and the involvement of the professional and interested public, which unfortunately has become the rule. That's why, respected citizens, I appeal to keep in force the legal solution where schools elect their principals, and to work together to improve it in order to take a step forward, not a step back," said Milatović at the time.
Ostojić, on the other hand, said yesterday that the issue of the umbrella education law "got a political connotation somewhere in the previous period".
"We have more than 30 dysfunctional school boards... You can imagine how institutions work where the principal is elected by a dysfunctional body. We sometimes have school boards that ignored some inspection findings for the dismissal of the principal...
Without going into the merits of the method of selecting a new director, I can tell you that the existing one caused a lot of problems," said Ostojić.
According to him, it remains to find a solution that will satisfy everyone through the drafting of a new regulation, which the body of the Ministry is working on.
"...To not slow down the system, and to once again remove those dilemmas that some part of the public has", he concluded.
Video surveillance soon
Speaking about the introduction of video surveillance in school yards and halls, Ostojić said that during the summer, the Department of Education provided funds for 26 institutions that did not have this type of equipment.
"During the analysis of the existing systems, we realized that some schools and some facilities did not implement the procedure adequately, as far as the legal prerequisites are concerned, so we are in communication both with colleagues from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and sometimes with colleagues from the Protection Agency of personal data, created regulations and acts that we forwarded to schools in the form of a template... We believe that soon all schools will be covered by adequate video surveillance systems in such a way that the identity of children and educators will be protected at all times", said Ostojić.
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