"I remember a girl who was a wolf boy here and moved to Vienna with her family from the sixth grade of primary school and when asked: 'What's the difference in school?', she answered that she goes outside there. That says something, because she is not the only one," Mirjana Marković, the founder of the Center for Child Psychology, told Vreme.
Four high school students from Čačak, Kraljevo and Belgrade founded the informal association "Korak dalje".
They noticed that, despite studying regularly, they could not achieve everything that was required of them and decided to look for a solution, according to a post by the Center for Child Psychology on Instagram.
The announcement also states that at the end of the first semester, three times as many high school students reported to the Center due to anxiety about the organization's learning difficulties.
"Since 2019, that number has been increasing." During 2021 and 2022, around the beginning of December, we recorded up to 30 problems of anxiety about school duties, which also includes anxiety about (failure to) succeed in school," says Mirjana Marković and adds that at the end of 2023, that problem has tripled.
"The number of calls and emails we received from the beginning of November to the middle reached almost 100 calls for support," emphasizes our interlocutor and adds that they asked for help from colleagues.
"However, the number of colleagues who work with young people is small, so that was also difficult," says Marković.
What is the cause?
When asked what high school students state as the most common problem, our interlocutor says that most report five to eight oral tests per week and more written tests than allowed. That, he says, is impossible to prepare without being affected by stress
He says the same applies to all students, both the better ones and the worse ones.
"The help from the school comes from the professor as an individual, I think the system has failed there," she points out. He says that it is not easy for teachers either with all their obligations towards assessment, students and the school.
High school students from the "Korak dalje" association conducted a survey among 500 students on whether the law governing the number of written tests in schools is respected.
Marković states that 71,7 percent of students answered that the law is not respected.
Introduce a limit on oral checks
According to our interlocutor, the center decided to support this group of high school students who conducted the survey after a large number of applications. The petition aims to limit the amount of oral examination.
"That's the problem, the number of oral tests is not limited, and they prepare for them in the same way as for written tests," says Marković.
On the Instagram page of the informal association "One step further" it is written that they do not seek excellent success without effort, but only compliance with the law and rules for oral examinations.
Finally, it is not about students who are not good students, who are problematic, on the contrary, most of them are students with higher grades, concludes Mirjana Marković.
