Lectura de espinas

1. The Parties shall, where appropriate, take measures in the fields of education and research to foster knowledge of the culture, history, language and religion of their national minorities and the majority.

2. In this context the Parties shall inter alia provide adequate opportunities for teacher training and access to textbooks, and facilitate contacts and students and teachers of different communities. 3. The Parties undertake to promote equal opportunities for access to education at all levels for persons belonging to national minorities.

Article 12, paragraph 1

Normative framework

Voivodina Center for Human Rights

The LFES determines the goal and task of education as raising awareness about one’s national and State affiliation and cultivating the tradition and culture of national minorities (Article 3 Paragraph 1 Item 5).

Implementation

Voivodina Center for Human Rights

Review on the Opinion of the Advisory Committee

Likewise in the time of first reporting, there are various shortcomings in the implementation of this paragraph, and apparently, despite the decisive measures taken by the authorities to address these issues248_{, some still remain:}

• There is permanent delay in printing the class registers, sets of exercises for entrance exams, diplomas and pupil’s assessment booklet in minority languages.

• Class registers in minority languages are more expensive than the Serbian ones.

• Translations to minority languages of tasks for school competitions are unprofessional, and in certain cases there are no translations at all.

The education policy pursued in the APV is more proactive and coherent in view of national minorities than the policy pursued in the territory of central, southern and eastern Serbia.

• The collection and updating of data relevant for the education of persons belonging to national minorities, which is the prerequisite to pursue an active minority education policy, has been consequently carried out on the territory of the Province (there is, however, a scope for further improvement), while minority education statistics for the territory of central Serbia are scarce and it significantly affects the quality of minority education in this region.

• The respect of different demands and needs of certain minority groups in education (e.g. of those living concentrated on a specific region from those settled dispersedly, mostly in rural areas) is more profound in the Province than on the territory of Serbia.

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• The national councils of national minorities in the APV are more active in creating and implementing the education policy relevant for their communities than the national councils in Serbia.

National Council of the Hungarian national minority

Issuance of form registers (translator’s note: registers containing all data pertaining to one form, ranging from pupils personal data to grades given and programmatic contents taught in the respective form) for schools giving instruction in minority languages is often late, thus even in the 2006/2007 school year, form registers written in the Hungarian language did not reach schools in time for the beginning of the school year.

In traditional competitions held for best pupils of some schools, pupils belonging to national minorities are given tests-tasks that are translations of the originals written in the Serbian language. Some parts of translations are often unskilled, incomprehensible or incomplete, thereby placing pupils belonging to national minorities in an unequal position compared to pupils receiving teaching in the Serbian language.

Except in the 2006/2007 school year, translations of exercise books for entrance examinations were not issued at the same time with exercise books in the majority language, therefore pupils who took entrance examinations in the Hungarian language were put in a less favourable position.

National Council of the Romanian national minority

The most serious problems in schools giving instruction in the Romanian language are concerning: textbooks, form registers, main registers, certificates, pupil mark books, competition tests, as well as professional development seminars for form tutors, subject teachers and professors.

Bilingual form registers are 5 times more expensive than form registers written in the Serbian language, and the Educational Review from Belgrade distributes them to schools with a two-month or even-three month delay after the start of the school year. The situation is similar with main registers, certificates, and pupils mark books and tests for the classification examination in the Romanian language and mathematics for the 8th grade.

• For example, competition tests in the Romanian language are not translated from all subjects, or are translated by unqualified persons. Members of the Department for Education have therefore proposed to the Provincial Secretariat for Education and Culture that they form their own team of translators comprising professors teaching those subjects in practice. The proposal has still not been accepted.

National Council of the Slovak national minority

Pupils belonging to national minorities take their qualification examinations in elementary schools in minority languages. Aided by exercise books issued in due time in their mother tongue, pupils take examinations in their mother tongue and in mathematics. Thus far, there has been marked delay in the printing and publishing of these exercise books, therefore pupils belonging to national minorities had less time to prepare for the examinations.

Competition tests in particular subjects are not translated into minority languages. In such cases, there have been instances when the provided interpreter did not possess sufficient knowledge of the language and of the expert terminology of the minority language, and interpreted simultaneously during the competition249_.

Schools conduct regular opinion polls among parents during the enrolment of pupils in the 1st grade of elementary school. During the enrolment in secondary schools, pupils opt for the language in which they wish to be taught.

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Recommendations

Voivodina Center for Human Rights

ƒ To print class registers in due time and to provide adequate and professional translations of the sets of exercises for entrance exams in national minority languages.

National Council of the Hungarian national minority

ƒ In addition to the fact that persons belonging to national minorities have the right to be educated in their mother tongue, the school curricula also need to be designed and implemented with respect to the cultural spirit of a particular national minority by: creating conditions for and encouraging the functioning of sections whose activities contribute to the preservation of national identity, organizing commemorating events for holidays of national minorities, not only in order to show them respect, but also to gain better understanding of their cultures.

Article 12, paragraph 2

Normative Framework

The LPRLNM (Article 12 Paragraph 1) stipulates the obligation of the state to ensure the functioning of departments at faculties which would provide education in minority languages for kindergarten tutors, lower grade teachers and minority language teachers. According to the provision of Paragraph 2 of the same Article, faculties are obliged to set up Terminology Centres for minority languages where teachers could perfect the professional terminology required for teaching in minority languages. According to the same Article, the state has the obligation to support professional training and terminology learning for teachers who teach in minority languages.

The LFES envisages the possibility for persons belonging to national minorities to use textbooks from their kin state, pending the approval of the Minister of Education, in accordance with the standards set by the National Educational Council (Article 94 Paragraph 4).

The Law on Textbooks and Other Educational Materials250 (Art. 4, Para. 1) explicitly provides that the textbooks shall be printed in the Serbian language – in Cyrillic script. Introduction of this obligation has reduced the former right of persons belonging to national minorities using Latin script to use textbooks written in Serbian and printed in Latin script in schools without additional efforts.

National Council of the Romanian National Minority

The Rules of Procedure on Continuous Professional Development and Acquisition of Title of

Teacher, Kindergarten Tutor and Expert Associate251 prescribes that the continuous professional

development of teachers, kindergarten tutors and expert associates shall be done according to separate programmes, which may be mandatory or optional (Article 4) and that teachers, kindergarten tutors and expert associates have the obligation to attend at least 100 programme classes within a period of 5 years, of which at least 60 classes from the list of mandatory programmes and 40 from the list of the optional programmes (Article 10).

Although a Catalogue of Programmes of Professional Development of Persons Employed in the

Field of Education for the 2007/2007 school year252 was published in the year of 2006, seminars

have not been organized for persons belonging to Romanian national minority and therefore

250 _{Republic of Serbia Official Gazette no 29/93} 251 _{“Official Gazette of RS” No. 14/2004. and 56/2005}

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professors of the Romanian language and literature do not have the possibility to work on their professional development.

Implementation