The Union of Secondary and Higher Education, Upbringing and Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina – SSVOONKBiH, Cantonal Board of Canton Sarajevo today, on the occasion of October 5 – International Teachers’ Day, organized a walk along Wilson’s Promenade, from the Third Gymnasium to the plateau near the National Museum, under the slogan “Walk for Better Education”.
In the last few years in Canton Sarajevo, due to the actions of the competent Ministry of Upbringing and Education, numerous changes have occurred in the education system which, in the opinion of the Union, have significantly derogated from the education system.
“We want to believe that the competent Ministry had the best intentions in the reform processes it implemented (and is still implementing), but the ways in which it was done, as well as the effects in many segments, have significantly either reduced the quality of education or have not yielded the expected results,” the Union of Secondary and Higher Education, Upbringing and Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina announced.
The statement states that the public has repeatedly, over the years, witnessed attempts by the Union, but also the wider community, to help and influence the reform(s) to move in the right direction and to have its effects qualitatively measurable and better than before the reform was implemented, through constructive proposals and suggestions and attempts at dialogue with responsible persons in the Government of the Sarajevo Canton and the competent Ministry.
“Unfortunately for all of us, primarily students and their parents, but also teachers and the entire community,” the authorities ignored the word of the profession and implemented the reform(s) as we see it today.
At this moment, we are still witnessing numerous problems brought about by the new Law on Upbringing and Education in Primary and Secondary Schools and its accompanying bylaws and regulations. We ask, has the new Law brought about a reduction in violence in schools? It has not! Is safety in schools better? It has not! Has the curriculum reform, which has been announced for a long time and prepared for almost ten years, produced the effects that were so pompously announced? It didn’t and it won’t, because the way it was carried out completely made sense of the very essence of this reform! Here, it would be interesting to ask the Ministry how much it all cost and who paid for it – according to the Union of Secondary and Higher Education, Education and Culture of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
They add that the Ministry’s intention “to illegally leave the process of taking care of workers whose work has been partially or completely redundant to a “machine” – software, and in the future perhaps even to artificial intelligence is almost unbelievable”.
“The piloting of this process showed that the software did not work properly, so it is quite obvious that the authorities in the Ministry decided to, bypassing the competent Commission, distribute workers themselves without any rational criteria, which caused a wave of dissatisfaction, insecurity, and concern among the aforementioned workers, as well as people waiting for vacancies. The public must know that there is no vacancy due to the disorganization of the competent ministry in relation to this piloting,” the statement states, adding that, due to this behavior, the Union has filed a criminal complaint against the Minister and an unidentified person for abuse of official position.
They emphasize that all of the above, as well as numerous other problems, are the reason why this year’s Teachers’ Day is being marked with a kind of protest walk.
