Serbia too Highly Rewarded?

July 5th 2007: At the ministerial summit of Higher Education of European countries held in London in May, Serbia was awarded a grade 4 in the field of implementation of reforms in the Higher Education area. This means that Serbia is amingst a group of countries with the best reforms in Higher Education. In Bergen 2005 the situation was different. Indeed, Serbia came after Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina as the worst graded country.

However, there is a strong feeling within the Serbian academic community that this grade was actually a reward.

This observation was reached on the basis that there was lack of transparency concerning the report-making. This shouldn’t be any surprise if we take into account that the Serbian National Report was designed by the then Deputy Minister for Higher Education, Ms. Emilia Stankovic. For the past months, Ms. Stankovic is imprisoned awaiting trial for her involvement in the corruption scandal at the Faculty of Law in Kragujevac.

Amongst the numerous false statements in the National Report, it is stated that the Committee for the Monitoring of Implementation on Higher Education had been constituted. This statement is false because today Serbia still does not have this structure. The National Report also describes the work  of the ENIC centre in Belgrade, which also does not exist. Furthermore, it was stated that the Ministry for HE constituted the National BFUG, also false!

Taking all of this into account, it is fair to conclude that Serbia was indeed highly ‘rewarded’ at the last Ministerial Summit.

Marko Dinic

SUS – Serbian National Union