Mid-March, early April, mid-April, and now a new deadline to save the academic year. What do students think about all these deadlines and trying to break the blockades
One academic year, several months faculty blockade, several deadlines for returning to the amphitheaters and six student demands.
This is how the academic year 2024/2025 could be briefly described for student in Serbia.
When in the middle of November, at the time of the first colloquiums, students entered the blockades demanding the fulfillment of the requirements, perhaps they did not expect that two months before the planned end of the second semester and the beginning of the summer exam periods, they would still be asking the question of when and if the academic year would even begin.
In the last two months, they have been mentioned several times deadlines for the start of classes, but all of them have been broken so far, and there is still no class.
March 15th was mentioned, then the beginning of April, then April 15th, and now April 22nd is on the table.
If the year continues, the assumption is that students will attend classes during the summer, and the president of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić he also announced a potential lex specialis on that matter.
The students, however, are clear - there is no going back until the demands are met, and they see all these announcements as an attempt to break the blockades and extinguish the months-long heated atmosphere.
New rock, new farce and intimidation
Boris Stanišić, a student at the Faculty of Law at the University of Belgrade, tells "Vreme" that all deadlines are an attempt to scare students.
"There are different attitudes among students, some are really worried. Others are of the opinion that if it falls, it falls, because we are fighting for something that is much more important than one academic year. I think that all the deadlines, the ones that have passed and the new ones that are mentioned, are a farce that they are trying to scare students who are definitely worried about the academic year. They are trying to create a feeling of fear in us and that time is working against us, which is not exactly the case," Sanišić told "Vreme".
A few weeks ago, there was an announcement that the students still have a few more weeks to return to their desks in order to complete the year, but the students are not giving up on their demands, and apart from the protests in Serbia, they have already been blocking for eight days Radio and Television of Serbia (RTS).
"If you ask the students, they will always say - blockade until the requirements are fulfilled. Considering that it is uncertain whether and when the requirements will be fulfilled, we do not know what we can expect when the year could start and what will happen with the next one," says Stanišić.
"We are not threatened by the fall of the year, but we are threatened by the fall of the year. That is the point of the story. If the year falls, the problem comes - how to enroll a new generation."
Aleksa Savić, a student at the Faculty of Technical Sciences of the University of Novi Sad, tells "Vreme" that students are not interested in deadlines at all.
"Every set deadline has been broken and nothing has happened regarding the fall of the year. The only thing that interests us right now are the thousands of people in front of RTS," he told "Vreme".
Angela Pejdo, a student at the Faculty of Philosophy in Niš, says that the blockade at that faculty continues even after April 22.
"I don't think that the year will fail. On the contrary, I believe that we will find a way to make up for everything that was missed", says Pejdo for "Vreme".
However, as he adds, even if there is a "failure" of the year, the students will still think about it.
"We are currently focused on things that are our priority at the moment," says the student of the Faculty of Philosophy in Nis.
Beginning of classes at medical faculties
Special adviser to the recent Minister of Education and full professor of the Faculty of Medical Sciences of the University of Kragujevac, prof. Dr. Vladimir Jakovljević told Insider on April 12 that the students will lose the academic year if they do not stop the blockades by April 22.
"Each faculty has its own specificities, medical professions, natural science professions, biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics are certainly in a much more complicated situation as they have serious practical exercises that they have to carry out and then also technical ones. Faculties of a social and humanistic nature can certainly do this much more simply because their groups for exercises and lectures are much larger. For example, in medicine you have a certain number of hours that you have to spend with patients", said Jakovljević.
The Faculty of Medicine in Kragujevac announced the start of classes on April 22 under the combined model, and a week earlier, on April 15, combined classes began at the related faculty in Niš.
"The faculty is still blocked, however, the online teaching of subjects is going on as a set, while for clinical subjects, online teaching and practical exercises are combined. It is good that a certain number of students have already registered, that number is above our expectations, so the online teaching has started", stated the dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Nis, Aleksandar Mitić, for K1 television on April 16.
He pointed out that teaching at the Faculty of Medicine is very specific and that it could not be postponed, because further postponement would result in the complete loss of the academic year.
The students in the blockade of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Niš announced on Sunday (April 20) that in recent days, only about five percent of their colleagues attended "illegitimate and illegal" online classes at that higher education institution.
As they claim, out of a total of 3.000 medical students in Niš, only 153 of them reported attending online classes during the blockade. They also note that "it is very likely that one student reported at least two different exercises that he listens to in the same year, which would mean that the number of students who attended is significantly lower."
Meanwhile, Serbia got a new one vladu, and he was appointed as the Minister of Education Dejan Vuk Stankovic who opposes blockades from their beginning. No new information has yet come from the new minister about the beginning of the end of the blockades, and his predecessor, Slavica Đukić Dejanović, sent letters to faculties about the potential consequences on several occasions.
The academic year has 30 teaching weeks, and during the past five months, students have missed most of it. If they return to the classrooms, they will have a working summer ahead of them, and whether and when the year will really be continued is currently unknown at most higher education institutions.
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