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The cover of “Politika” from December 17, 2020 is simply devastating. “Graduates without basic knowledge of the Serbian language”, is the main article in which the analysis of the results of the final exam of the founders of the 2019/20 school year is presented. years. This analysis showed that 60 per cent of boys and 72 per cent of girls correctly solved the tasks that verify basic knowledge of Serbian language and literature. The average success of the generation in the test is 11.18 out of 20 possible points. If the usual criteria are accepted, that for the lowest degree of transition, it is necessary to know 60 percent of the material: the eights of the 2019/20 generation. they received a rating of insufficient (1) in Serbian language and literature. How is that possible, when almost half of that generation are excellent (45.1 percent), a third are very good (35.3 percent) and a fifth are good students (18.9 percent)? How is it possible that out of so many excellent and very good students, only 288 of them in the whole of Serbia correctly answered the twenty questions of Serbian language and literature?
Unfortunately, none of this is surprising to someone who knows the state of Serbian education, especially when it comes to teaching Serbian language and literature.
The Department of Serbian Language and the Department of Serbian Literature of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade (founded in 1844 and 1851) and the Serbian Language and Literature Society of Serbia (founded in 1910) have long warned about the problems with various activities. on the teaching of Serbian language and literature, but unfortunately that has little impact on the public, and not at all on the Ministry of Education. Something similar happened with the Serbian interdepartmental conference held this summer in Tršić, in which the “Declaration on the need to increase the number of Serbian language and literature classes in primary and secondary schools” was adopted. It was published in the topic of “Literary Newspapers” (No. 1297-99, June-July-August 2020), together with articles by excellent Serbs, professors at the University of Belgrade Vesna Lompar, Rajna Dragicevic, Aleksandar Milanovic, Aleksandar Jovanovic , Zorana Opacic, as and Radivoje Stojkovic, president of the National Council of Education, who supported the statement.
Inviting the general public to familiarize themselves with the full text of the statement on the website of the Association for Serbian Language and Literature of Serbia, we would like to take this opportunity to repeat only the most important thing: that the mother tongue has a decisive influence in the construction of linguistic and literary culture. , but also the ability to acquire knowledge of all other subjects (because most of them are mediated by language). With five hours in the lower grades of primary school and four hours in the upper grades, the teaching of Serbian language and literature in Serbia is much less represented than the teaching of mother tongues and literature in, say, France ( eight to ten), Turkey (eight to ten), Russia (nine), Slovakia (nine), Austria and Portugal (eight): countries belonging to different cultural traditions, but equally dedicated to promoting the teaching of the mother tongue and the literature. We believe that in our school system, the situation would improve with seven hours a week in the lower grades of elementary school, six hours in the upper grades, five hours in the secondary schools and four hours in the secondary schools, which would give them give teachers enough time to thoroughly process teaching with students. content whose richness and diversity is not in line with the reduced number of hours.
In addition to the obvious need to increase the number of classes, in the articles on the aforementioned topic “Literary newspapers” (which can be read in full on the website of the Serbian Language and Literature Society of Serbia), other Proposals to improve the teaching of Serbian language and literature. learn the mother tongue and literature (as is the case in Russia), to a change of policy of writing and reviewing textbooks. “Politika” has been dealing with this last topic intensively lately, especially asking about the state of textbooks for national subjects; Last year’s final exam results show that it really is an extremely important topic and it is great that it has been cast onto the pages of our oldest and most prestigious newspapers.
Of course, we must not close our eyes to the fact that many teachers are unmotivated to work because of their position in school and the excessive bureaucratization of their work. Furthermore, the employment ban has impeded the natural change of generations in schools, that is, the transfer of knowledge and skills from older teachers to those who have just graduated from university; We hope that lifting that ban from early 2021 will make things better.
Finally, an analysis of the results of the final exam of the founders of the 2019/20 school year. It also uncovered a problem that is not only related to Serbian language and literature, but to our education as a whole: the marked disproportion between students’ school success and their achievement in final tests indicates the pressure placed on teachers of the various sectors so that students are excellent or at least very good, without understanding that this seems a disservice to students, because undeservedly high marks discourage them to learn. This problem is being silenced and it is necessary to talk about it in order to obtain systematic support from teachers to encourage student engagement with nuanced assessment.
Deeply convinced of the need to discuss as widely as possible the contents and the way of teaching Serbian language and literature, the writing and revision of textbooks, the status of teachers and the principles of student assessment, we remain open to any debate, ready to put our professional skills at stake to overcome this situation. primarily the welfare of students, Serbian education and society as a whole, is stated in a joint statement by the Serbian Language and Literature Society of Serbia, the Department of Serbian Language with South Slavic Languages and the Department of Serbian Literature with South Slavic Literature from the Faculty of Philology of the UB.
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