Students and parents from Konjević Polje left without funds for classes?

Teachers who teach students from Konjević Polje at the Educational Center in Nova Kasaba have not received a single salary in the second semester of the 2015/2016 school year, and according to information available to the Patria agency, payment was not made by the Ministry of Finance of the Sarajevo Canton.

For three years now, the Ministry of Education of the Sarajevo Canton, the Ministry of Displaced Persons and Refugees of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina have been involved in the project of organizing classes for Bosniak children who could not study the Bosnian language and the national group of subjects in the Republika Srpska.

As confirmed for NAP, the Federal Ministry of Displaced Persons has settled its obligations for student transportation, while the Ministry of Education of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina sent a payment order to the Ministry of Finance of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in mid-May. A month later, the funds were transferred to the Ministry of Education of the Sarajevo Canton, but to this day the teachers have not been paid their earned salaries.

As Nihada Čolić, coordinator of instructional classes for students from Konjević Polje, told Patria, at this moment they still do not have secured financial support for the continuation of the project in Nova Kasaba.

Given that classes are supposed to start in less than a month, Čolić, together with Muhizina Omerović, a representative of the parents of Bosniak children from Konjević Polje, is trying to secure support.

This year, there will be about 120 children attending school in Nova Kasaba, although the Educational Center is limited in space. Parents say they will not return to the education system that imposes classes without the national group of subjects.