Belgrade (BETAPHOTO/Ana Slovic)
The ombudsman requested the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development on Jan. 27 to remove from the curriculum, by the start of the next school year, the Serbian language textbook for the eighth grade of elementary school, in which the existence of the Croatian, Bosniac and Montenegrin languages is denied.
According to the statement, the request was made "with the goal of respecting the languages of national minorities that are recognized in Serbia." At the start of October, the ombudsman launched a procedure for controlling the regularity and legality of work of the Ministry and of the Bureau for Improving the Education and Upbringing of the Republic of Serbia, on the basis of a complaint lodged by the National Council of the Croatian ethnic minority
He has established that the Ministry for Education had allowed the issuing of the Serbian language textbook for the eighth grade of elementary school, in which the definition of southern Slavic languages reads that Croats, Bosniacs and Montenegrins used the Serbian language, but referred to it as Croatian, Bosniac and Montenegrin.
In the opinion he has submitted to the relevant authorities, the ombudsman stated that the allowing of the textbook that contains such a definition violated the rights of members of ethnic minorities "because it denies the existence of these languages, wherein Croatian and Bosniac languages are among those languages and scripts that are officially used in Serbia."
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