The Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina decided at today’s session that the history for the 9th grade of elementary school in the Republika Srpska, in the part relating to the topic “Republika Srpska and the Homeland Defense War”, is not in accordance with the Constitution of BiH.
The Court has invalidated the aforementioned acts and they have ceased to be valid from the date of their publication in the “Official Gazette of the Republika Srpska”.
The Constitutional Court’s decision prohibits teaching the subject History for the 9th grade of elementary school based on pages 185–192 of the textbook “History for the 9th grade of elementary school”, published by the Public Enterprise “Institute for Textbooks and Teaching Materials” a.d. Istočno Sarajevo, edition for 2024.
The Constitutional Court explained that topics relating to the Republika Srpska and the Serbian people comprise a large part of the elementary school curriculum. They believe that such an approach, which excludes the perspectives of members of other ethnic groups, cannot be considered aligned with the Ministry’s obligation to support and nurture the different cultures, languages and religions of its students, and to support and nurture different cultures and tolerance for diversity.
“It is not at all clear from the contested provisions how and in what way the listed topics relate to members of other constituent peoples and members of the group of Others,” the Constitutional Court said.
The Constitutional Court tasked the Minister of Education and Culture of Republika Srpska and the Director of the Republic Pedagogical Institute of Republika Srpska with implementing this decision.
