Last week, a baby fell from the window of a kindergarten in Rakovica. A month ago, another one fell from the window of her home in Zemun. Last December, another one, in Kraljevo.
By order of the First Vice-President of the Government of Serbia and the Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development, Branko Ružić, the Educational Inspectorate carried out an extraordinary inspection in the "Trčuljak" kindergarten, from whose window on the second floor a baby fell the other day. It was established that the facility did not have a decision on verification, and the minister announced that the director would most likely be fired.
The case is, therefore, solved, but the problem is not. No one can guarantee that your child is safe in kindergarten.
Kindergarten "Trčuljak" is a sign, a warning of a problem, and a signal that it must be solved. And the state and its employees are expected to solve problems and not just individual cases.
Punishing the principal, the teacher, the entire kindergarten and whoever, without a doubt, is necessary, perhaps effective, but it does not even guarantee that in a few days some next baby will not crawl to the window and fly away.
From a common-sense point of view, we will agree that Minister Ružić's decision on, for example, placing nets on the windows of all kindergartens in the country would be a better and greater protection against the dismissal of female principals.
Why was the decision not made to immediately inspect all kindergartens and other pre-school institutions where babies and small children are cared for? Why don't first-class people and experts work in them? Why don't they have the conditions to work as intended? And why do they do what they do if they don't have the conditions? Why does no one control who works and how?
People say: this is an unfortunate case, it can happen to anyone that the moment you turn around, a baby falls from the window. And that is true, because anything can happen to anyone. Therefore, it is not human to discuss how it is possible that the teacher did not see the one-year-old baby crawling so that she would not have climbed on the table, and then over the table and along the wall to the window. But it is therefore unacceptable that in a kindergarten, full of children unaware of every danger in this world, the table is leaning against the window.
But society and the state must warn that this does not happen in places under their jurisdiction, such as kindergartens - which can happen to anyone. They must, and should not, eliminate the problem, if only by mandatory installation of protective nets on the windows.
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