Teachers’ Union: Stopping Work on May 5, Expecting Minister’s Resignation

Panorama of Belgrade (BETAPHOTO/MILOS MISKOV/MO)

The president of the Union of Serbian Education Employees’ Trade Unions, Jasna Jankovic, has announced that members of that union would stop working for the entire day on May 5, because of the tragedy in the Vladislav Ribnikar elementary school in Belgrade, explaining that this day would be one of mourning, after which the union members would decide on further steps.

In an interview to BETA, she said she expected Minister for Education Branko Ruzic to resign “for moral reasons, because the system has failed.” “We have informed the parents that children should not come to school [on that day], but my colleagues and I will be at our schools. We have received immense support from the parents for that,” Jankovic stated and assessed that “huge problems” existed in the education system, recollecting her Union’s drive at the end of last year, titled “Stop Violence in Schools.”

Asked about whether Ruzic should resign, she said that she had been observing the education ministers for a number of years and that they were all “individuals who absolutely lacked the training and interest for education, and only looked how they could run away from it.”

“It is absolutely irrelevant who is minister, because they all have those three characteristics. Although, after this event, I expect him to resign as an expression of a moral act of a person who was heading the ministry at the time of its occurrence, because the entire system has failed,” Jankovic stated.