Education as a Trifle for Political Undermining – Personal Attitudes

President Vučić has been behaving like this for a long time, wondering and deciding on everything, regardless of the fact that it is sometimes unconstitutional and almost always socially destructive.

Unfortunately, what is happening around him is in his favor, because to be honest, the current political moment was not created by Vučić himself, but by everyone together, doing or not doing, it does not matter.

And that praesens political status described by the current narrative says: in the elections for us, about three million citizens were tested (whoever wanted), about two million of them tested positive for SNS (and other viruses), and the opposition was (was and remains) on respirators.

So when that is already the case, what could the formation of the new Serbian Government look like, except for what we just had?

Why, despite the complete certainty about the composition of the new cabinet, are many Serbian citizens still surprised by the result?

First of all, I think of pluralism in Serbia that we do not imagine exactly like that, as a political monodrama in which the main actor does not leave the stage even after the longest applause.

Here, we now have an arrangement of figures in the fields of executive power, so what is not clear here?

From the beginning it was known who the great master was, so it was not difficult to guess who would be the queen, who would be the hunter and the cannon and who would be the horse.

Well, perhaps the names and positions of all the pawns were not known, but the basic characteristics of this political-chess opening were expected.

We got the set that Vučić wanted (± accepted), and that from the outside seems concentrated, politically correct and acceptable for Europe; The latter all the more so because, again for Vučić, this government is also limited in time: its flag falls in April 2022.

I do not deny to anyone who is in the new cabinet for the first time the existence of a sincere desire to at least try to change something for the better.

I consider that the new ministers also have socially useful ambitions and I may be naive about that, but I will not condemn them in advance and without proof.

So, I don’t attack them, but I wonder how they defend themselves, that is, do they attack, question themselves?

For example, the new ministers probably already know how they will react if the president ‘runs’ to their department and starts saying (promising) everything and everything, will they oppose or will they pretend to be deaf and beg the country to open up to them?

Will they bend their knees when behind Vučić while he verbally violates common sense, for example, like the other day, when in the same direction, almost in the same sentence, he first mocked disobedient media in his low circulation, and then showed them? as media moguls who have a great impact on public opinion?

All new members of the Government should answer these questions, but not me, but myself.

Their very consent to be part of the cabinet shows that they have repressed and forgotten many problems that happened to previous (and current) ministers.

The small and big humiliations that will soon be served to you were probably forgotten beforehand, so I guess they are.

However, my main impression of the distribution of rooms and armchairs in Nemanjina is expressed in the title of this text, and it refers to the sad fate of education, science and technological development.

This department was an orphan in almost all Serbian governments, but what happened now exceeded my expectations, and they were always low in terms of how much the Serbian government cares about education.

When, after great anticipation, the names of the ministers were finally made public, only the name of the candidate for Minister of Education (and the one who did not have a folder) remained with a question mark.

Thus, education turned out to be the twenty-first hole in the pipe with an equal number of holes, a small change for party bribery, a consolation prize that even the SPS did not seem to enthuse about, although this match always had a peak in education.

I know that it is possible and that not everything was exactly as it seemed; For example, maybe the SPS had been looking at education and science all along, it wouldn’t have been their first time, and if all this ‘push’ from the education department was like an ugly duckling, it was just wishful thinking.

To go even further, perhaps Vučić doubted who to give it to precisely because of the great importance he attaches to the education sector?

Or maybe Ana Brnabić personally insisted on thinking about this issue for a long time, maybe she even opposed leaving this ministry to the SPS? Finally, did you not often say how is the future of Serbia in education?

Let everything go under “maybe”, and until I’m convinced otherwise, I’ll keep thinking that everything played out exactly as it seems.

And it seems that Šarčević went downstream because he was the weakest politically, an unprotected pedestrian, a disposable minister, a person created for the hot education department: if you come, you incur the wrath of teachers and students and their parents, if something good and you do it, quickly forget it, forget it when you speak nonsense; in general, when you leave, nobody notices that you are no longer in Nemanjina 22.

Until yesterday, the Prime Minister spoke about the great successes in the education sector, and once shouted that ‘Šarčević is one of the best ministers’ (https://www.danas.rs/politika/brnabic-sarcevic-jedan -od-najboljih-ministara-ne -I accept-your-resignation /), and there is also a tragicomic video on YouTube where the prime minister-designate says that Germany and Luxembourg envy us for reform movements (see for yourself, you can’t retell), and what would you do now?

Let’s be clear, I don’t feel sorry for Šarčević either, I won’t miss him at all, besides, I experienced his departure like a refreshment, at least in the audiovisual sense, but even this handover of the department of education and science to the eternal SPS does not give me any hope. .

If this story of mine today about the shamefully low price of education and science among the most powerful politicians in Serbia is true, we will see it soon, as soon as we know what reform questions will be open (if any) and how much will be the budget for education and science next year.

There is a good chance that everything will continue the old and the bad way, which means: there will only be a certain redistribution of academic power, there will be some people and groups of people close to the new minister who will expand his influence more easily than before. The education, science and technological development of Serbia as a whole will not change.

And now, the key question is, can those of us who work in education do something, or will we just keep quiet and listen to how education is also a priority for this government?

I think we can and I have a proposal that refers mainly to my colleagues in higher education.

This is what you do: stand up to politically educated people and interest groups (for whom every minister is good), stand up to those people even when they are in the faculty administration (especially then), never allow harassment in no setting (that is, when you see someone ruining a career and you wouldn’t mind because it’s not yours), to sign every petition against proven plagiarism, but not to participate in spin-offs against freedom of thought (because those two are just for a fool himself), walk past the RTS building and endorse the request for the Public Service to muster up the courage and do its job (unless we think what RTS is doing is okay) and so on, the list is more long (delivery of the complete list by email, upon personal request).

My proposal may disappoint some because it is not about academic disobedience to politicians; it is something else entirely: a call for ordinary academic coherence among us.

Thanks to her, Vučić will certainly not give up power, but he can help that at least the one who will be the president does not rule our grandchildren like him.

There is an alternative, and that is to keep quiet and watch our business. And that makes sense, because as long as there is at least some change on the table, something can be lost. People think the same.

The author is a professor at the Faculty of Mining and Geology and a corresponding member of SANU

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