Why is the Government of Serbia shutting down Petnica?

The Ministry of Education canceled the funding of the Research Station Petnica in 2009. When this extremely gloomy news passed through the agencies and appeared in the press and on the Internet, it took only a few hours for a multitude of comments to arrive from all over the world, criticizing with indignation and surprise such an almost unbelievable and, from any angle, incomprehensible course. the policies of the Minister of Education Žarko Obradović.

Then, on the same day, information arrived from the Ministry of Education that "there will be money for Petnica", as the Assistant Minister of Education for Finance Milanko Perišić suddenly discovered that somewhere in the office he had a project for working with gifted children through which he could pay the already small funds in previous years, the Ministry of Education helped this world-famous institution for extracurricular education of talented students.

In fact, the mentioned assistant promised that the sum might not be "as much as the management of Petnica expects, but it will be in line with the budget possibilities". But what are Serbia's budgetary possibilities? Do those possibilities also include thousands of officials who don't even know what they have in their office drawers, let alone where Petnica is and what is the purpose of 140 programs, seminars, courses and camps through which about 2.500 pupils and students from all over Serbia and the countries of the region go?

There are citizens who voted for the democratic government in the last round of elections and remember very well how President Boris Tadić explicitly and proudly mentioned Petnica in his speeches, introducing it quite deservedly among several national priorities. The party of the Minister of Education did not deal with that issue during the election campaign, but apparently not even after it. The question remains for the one who allowed him to lead this department, whether our long-term "budgetary possibilities" allow us to keep such a minister.

On the other hand, abandoning Petnica after 25 years in which it has become a breeding ground for the best quality staff that Serbia has, is abandoning the last island of quality in a ruined school system where students beat female teachers. What would Serbia look like in 25 years without all those knowledge and ways of thinking that can be acquired nowhere, except in Petnica? Even in an economic crisis, it is not possible to justify giving up the last healthy tissue, at the expense of the inaction of one minister's team. For now, Assistant Perišić is trying to calm down the media storm, but his unconvincing explanation does not suggest too much that Minister Obradović intends to actually do anything.

It is a complete paradox that, at the same time, the much weaker Ministry of Science and Technological Development, headed by Božidar Đelić, is doing everything it can to help the station. These days, the negotiations with the European Investment Bank on the continuation of the construction and expansion of the station's capacity are coming to an end, so it may happen that never-before-seen funds arrive in Petnica for the construction of a new teaching center, and that because the Ministry of Education has not done its part, the station will fail to maintain regular activities.

After a rather painful history of relations with the Ministry of Education during the period of the old regime, things did not improve much, but by 2007 everything was somehow working. That year, the ministry helped Petnica with 16 million dinars, but the following year, in 2008, Minister Obradović reduced the funds to 5 million, in order to pay nothing this year. The regular costs for maintenance and implementation are more than 40 million dinars, which is actually an insignificant amount when compared to the annual price of any ordinary larger school in Serbia.

For Petnica, the Ministry of Education is not the only source of funding, but the complete shutdown of the flow of that part of the funds is reminiscent of turning off the patient's respirator on the machines, while the other life support devices are still on. Knowing Petnica, she is one of those patients who won't give up so easily because of it. But, the question remains, will the country, which in this way turns off its own devices for maintaining the future, shut down?

This question, it seems, was taken out of the glass ball by the Minister of Education this year along with the questions for school entrance exams.