“WE RECEIVED AN INDECENT OFFER”: The protest of parents and students of the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium is over!

The protest of parents and students of the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium ended today in front of the Ministry of Education after the requested reception with the Minister of Education, Dejan Vuk Stanković, did not take place, and they were told they could talk “with Chief Filipović,” at the School Administration in Zahumska 14, writes FoNet, reported by Danas.

“That is the indecent offer we received,” said Nemanja Milošević, President of the Parents’ Council of the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium.

He added that Filipović would only receive the professors of the Fifth, but not the parents and children, which the gymnasium professors immediately refused, with the message that “either everyone goes, or no one goes.”

Milošević said that Filipović cannot hold a parent-teacher meeting, but he could unenroll a child from the Fifth “when he found out that Danka Nešović was coming to it.”

“This is another indicator of how they do not want to solve the problem, but want to continue to harass us,” Milošević said.

APPEAL FOR NONE OF THE STUDENTS TO GO TO THE SCHOOLS THEY HAVE BEEN DISPLACED TO

He appealed that none of the students of the Fifth go to the two schools they have been displaced to for classes in the afternoon shift.

He also announced a gathering for tomorrow, and the plan and time will be agreed upon today.

Traffic on Nemanjina Street towards Slavija was suspended during the protest. The gathered people previously made noise with whistles and shouted “We won’t give up the Fifth”.

Students and parents began the protest at 7:30 a.m. in front of the Fifth Gymnasium, and then walked to Nemanjina Street, where the seat of the Ministry of Education is located and where they requested a reception with the relevant Minister Dejan Vuk Stanković.

The gathered people, protesting the decision for classes to start in the buildings of two elementary schools after the student blockade of the gymnasium, were called to walk to the Ministry by Nemanja Milošević, President of the Parents’ Council of the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium.

“To try to talk, solve this problem, and explain to him that there is really no reason to do what he is doing and to finally let the children go to this school,” Milošević said.

“THE INSPECTION COULD BE COMPLETED IN ONE DAY”

He previously emphasized that the school has been tidied up and that there is no reason for the students to go to other schools in another municipality, where there are no capacities to receive the students of the Fifth.

“I will remind you that last school year the Fifth Belgrade Gymnasium was blocked for more than five months and that when the school year resumed on May 5, we practically immediately entered the school and started classes. So, when it suited the Ministry, it was possible to immediately enter and there were no problems,” said one of the parents, Nemanja Milošević.

According to him, the children left the school in the condition they found it, and that they cleaned it up, and there are videos of it.

“They simply photographed and filmed the entire school with their phones, precisely so that it could be seen that everything is in order, and anyone can see that, and that material will be available to all media. Certainly, the sanitary inspection, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and that inventory of property, all that can be completed in one day, it can literally be finished today in the morning shift and the children can go to school in the afternoon. So I really don’t see a reason… Not me, but simply neither the parents nor the children see a reason not to go to their school.”

“We are afraid that the Jovina Gymnasium will happen to us”

As Milošević says, everyone fears that what happened to the Jovina Gymnasium in Novi Sad will happen to their school, whose students have been going to three different schools for classes for some time.

He points out that this is harassment of children and punishment for being in a blockade for more than a month.

“These schools do not have enough capacity even to accept one whole shift. We have 21 classes per shift, and one of those schools only has 16 classrooms. So, right from the start, you have a problem with five classes that will be online during the shift they are supposed to go to school… So, there is simply no room, not enough capacity. They couldn’t even find a school in this municipality, but moved the children to Savski venac. Not to mention that there is no legal basis for hybrid teaching, because the school must have a special permit for that. I am sure that such a permit has not been obtained,” says the interlocutor.

If the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the inspection were to come to the school to do their job, Milošević assessed that it could be done in one day, and the children could have classes as early as the afternoon shift.

POPOVIĆ: THERE IS NO FUTURE IN SUBMISSIVENESS

Former Rector of the University of Belgrade, Ivanka Popović, said that the school is a place where citizens are created, which the Fifth Gymnasium has always done.

“Unfortunately, we are faced with the fact that the Ministry of Education has joined the ministries of force, to implement what suits the authorities, not what suits the citizens,” said Ivanka Popović.

She added that the fight in the Fifth is not only for the right to education, but for the right to form personalities capable of critical thinking.

According to her, there is no future in submissiveness, but in free people who make decisions by free will, and not because they are forced to.

Ivanka Popović also said that any administrative delay preventing the use of the school represents only “a way of punishing the students” for expressing their free opinion.

“This is part of a common struggle for a better Serbia, and ultimately it is a fight for a better Serbia and for these young generations,” she said.