SERBIA

“YOU ARE NOT ALONE, PROFESSORS ARE WITH YOU”: Part of the teaching staff in Niš suspends work in support of students!

by Serbian Times15. January 2025.15. January 2025.

At a plenary session held in Niš, a decision was made to publish a declaration of support for students about the protest suspension of work by a part of the teaching staff, associates, and researchers at the University of Niš.

A support video was also recorded at the Rectorate, and each faculty will record its own spot with a message. This will be published to make it easier for students, reports an N1 reporter, along with a proclamation with specific demands. The message is that practically part of the teaching staff participating in the plenary session will be in a blockade until the students’ demands are met.

Professor Dušan Aleksić from the Faculty of Philosophy says that the most significant decision made was the proclamation, which refers to the protest suspension of work.

“It implies the suspension of all teaching, exam, and pre-exam activities, effective immediately. In addition to that, there is also a call to all those who are ignoring us to join us. We talked for more than two hours, eight points, our first plenary session, everything was unanimously adopted, both regarding the proclamation and the letter we sent to the teaching staff,” he says.

FIND OUT MORE IN SERBIAN:

He added that a protest walk will be held on Monday with a symbolic performance from Banovina to the building of the Faculty of Medicine, where they will bring a mirror to the management so they can “look themselves in the eye”.

“To remind professors what their task is, that our job goes far beyond the educational function which is reduced to the mere transfer of knowledge,” he says and adds that the next plenary session is on Wednesday when all activities will be carried out.

Professor Slobodan Milutinović from the Faculty of Occupational Safety says that the message is that they have always supported students, been behind them, and now they have “in a way stepped in front”.

“There are no classes, there haven’t been any, there haven’t been any exams, except that this is now moving into a slightly more serious mode, into a protest suspension of work. We hope that by massifying this, it will become a kind of additional pressure, and on the other hand, everything that has been happening in the previous period and all the pressures that our students have been subjected to deserve this to be a more serious response,” he says.

Professors said loudly in a video message they recorded: “You are not alone, professors are with you.”