Minister: Classes Are Happening at Faculties, Buildings Must Be Unblocked

Dejan Vuk Stankovic (BETAPHOTO/MILAN OBRADOVIC)

Serbian Education Minister Dejan Vuk Stankovic said on July 16 that all faculties were working and that they had all been authorized to hold online classes, adding that "every institution of higher education, every faculty, has its own pace for making up classes."

"There are some that began and completed makeup classes much earlier, and concluded their work for this semester. They are beginning to hold examinations," Stankovic told the Serbian Broadcasting Corporation, stating that "classes are happening" at faculties.

He said "academic life is returning to where it belongs -- institutions of higher education, but there is the problem of their buildings being blocked." "It's a kind of moral debt of the faculty management and the rectors of all faculties of the University of Belgrade to work out some kind of sustainable and credible deal with the students blocking the buildings to unblock them," Stankovic said.

He recalled that the Serbian government had approved quotas for next year's enrollment, but said classes had to be made up and examinations conducted by Nov. 1 for them to be applied fully. "If institutions of higher education want to have prospects, a new generation of students, they need to buckle down and do their best in these 12 or so weeks to make up what was missed and give students the opportunity to take their exams, so we can meet the new academic year in regular circumstances," Stankovic said.