Educators shocked by Minister Kazazović's school work plan

Minister of Education in KS Elvir Kazazović, since taking office, has been acting on his own, with consultations from a few individuals from the Ministry, while the professional staff is hardly consulted on key issues, reports the Patria News Agency.

Thus, without extensive analysis, he introduced English and Informatics to first-graders in the Canton of Sarajevo, along with an additional hour of Physical Education, and then, bypassing legal procedures, imposed a new methodology for creating the Annual School Work Plan on schools.

According to the new documents in education in the Canton of Sarajevo, primary and secondary school students with strabismus or diopter are statistically classified among those with special needs!

The unified material for the annual program for primary and secondary schools, which the KS Ministry of Education provided to teachers for preparation for the new school year, has shocked educators in the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The deadline for submitting the plans was particularly problematic, and late Friday afternoon, an email was sent from the Ministry stating that schools are obliged to submit completed tables, of which there are at least 30, by September 10th at the latest, just before Eid al-Adha.

- Until now, the Annual School Work Plan was prescribed by the regulation on pedagogical documentation and records. We have prescribed tables aligned with the Law on Primary Education and Schooling published in the official gazette regarding the number of students, employees, financing, 40 hours per week, and everything important for the functioning of the school. Now he is imposing a new methodology for creating the Annual School Work Plan with data and tables that are not in accordance with the Law. With a table that treats children with disabilities, strabismus, and poor vision as special needs, and many other illogicalities – says our source from the Ministry.

As we learn, almost all schools have submitted objections, including the principals of secondary and primary schools. Also, at meetings, principals tried to point out the illegality and administrative burden, as schools can practically do nothing in September but fill out Kazazović's tables.

The Minister believes that these tables provide a better overview of employee planning, as they do not allow anything other than classes to be counted towards the norm. He clearly wants to show that elementary school teachers do not have a norm, especially first-grade teachers. According to him, nothing is done in school except for classes. As for clubs, extracurricular activities, organizing and preparing events, additional supplementary classes – these clearly mean nothing to the minister – adds our source.

Despite all the objections and suggestions from the professional staff to revise and align everything with the new Law and implement it once it comes into effect, in order to return to the framework of legality, Kazazović's response was that the professional staff is unnecessarily trying, because he will achieve his plan.