The Institute for Education reacted to the article "Bad grades for schools on the orders of the principal?", published in today's "Vijesti", saying that the claims made by some employees of that educational institution are untrue.
We transmit the reaction in its entirety:
"We indignantly reject the allegations that Director Raba Hodžić forces supervisors to falsify the explanations of supervision and significantly reduce the assessments of educational institutions, as well as all blanket, unfounded and tendentious allegations that imply dishonest and illegal actions, as malicious and unfounded attempts to discredit. The published text presents claims that have no factual basis and represent an obvious attempt at media spin."
"The work of the Institute is based on clear, transparent and legal procedures, which is confirmed in the part of the text that presents the position of the Institute for Education. The transparency of the work of the Institute for Education and its openness to cooperation is best demonstrated by the fact that you received answers to the requested questions on the same day you sent them to the official email address of the Institute, which, we remind you, was March 11, 2025.
"In our previous address, we explained the procedure for preparing and implementing an external evaluation of the quality of work of an educational institution (supervision): which refutes the claims that "forced changes in supervision reports" occurred in more than 30 institutions across Montenegro.
"The report on determining the quality of educational work cannot affect the legal status of the employee, so the "threat of losing their job" is another in a series of malicious untruths.
"The article states that the Director of the Institute for Education requested a reduction in the work evaluations of the then Director Biljana Vučurović and that on that occasion there were verbal conflicts between the supervisor and the Director of the Institute and her assistant, which is a malicious and tendentious untruth that the "concerned employees" told you. During the regular supervision in December 2023, Ms. Raba Hodžić had not yet been appointed Director of the Institute, and she was part of the Team of Supervisors at the 'Slobodan Škerović' Gymnasium, and as a member of the Team she could not exert pressure on the other members of the Team, which she did not do in January, when she signed, as the newly appointed Director of the Institute for Education, the already completed Report. The Report, which was prepared after the partial supervision in December 2024, did not provide any evaluations, but only an explanation with recommendations to the institution. It seems that the supervisors, by singling out this institution, among all the other institutions that were visited and to which suggestions were given for harmonizing explanations, assessments and recommendations, are showing a malicious and tendentious connotation with this action. Reports on the quality of work of educational institutions are of an advisory nature and do not influence the dismissal of managers of educational institutions.
"We would also like to point out that employees from the Institute for Education also approached previous governments of Montenegro anonymously, when their 'targets' were the then managers. Given that this case was signed anonymously, as with the previous managers of the Institute, we cannot rule out the possibility that it is the same persons or one and the same person, because the fact that it is signed in the plural does not necessarily mean that more than one person is behind it.
"We would like to emphasize that all employees who make unverified and untrue claims have done so anonymously, which further confirms the doubt about the credibility of such allegations. If they had signed their statements, they could have been prosecuted for defamation, which would be the next legal step."
"The extent to which work has been done in the previous period to improve the quality of educational work in our educational institutions is confirmed by the excellent cooperation of the Institute's management with all their managers, as well as teaching and professional staff, who have recognized our commitment to providing support and improving the quality of all segments of joint work and who often draw our attention to certain illogicalities in reports on external assessment of the quality of educational work," the response reads.
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