Teachers’ strike on first day of school

N1

The first day of school began with teachers’ strikes in more than 500 schools across Serbia, an official of the Teachers’ Union said.

Union official Jasna Jankovic told N1 that classes were cut to 30 minutes instead of the customary 45. She said that the teachers are demanding a 20 percent pay raise among other things.

“The talks at the Education Ministry were talks with Minister Branko Ruzic but we know that the finance ministry is the one to ask… So there were no serious talks,” she said and recalled that the teachers have been insisting on pay grades whose introduction has been postponed for 2025.

In an earlier statement, the union said that the policies being implemented in educating children are disoriented.

The school year began with the mandatory intoning of the Serbian national anthem Boze Pravde in all schools which Shchiprim Musliu, a senior local official in the Bujanovac municipality of southern Serbia, called fascism.