Government of Sarajevo Canton and Ministry of Higher Education forgot the Gold Badges: Where is the money for co-financing doctoral studies?

(Patria) - Although the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth of Sarajevo Canton published a Public Call for co-financing the costs of the third cycle of studies at the University of Sarajevo for recipients of the highest academic recognition, the Gold Badge, as early as July 7, 2025, the results of that call have not been published even by mid-October.

The official website of the Ministry of Science, Higher Education and Youth still displays the public call, but not the list of doctoral students.

Since the second half of July, the Ministry has been headed by the Minister of Economy of Sarajevo Canton, Zlatko Mijatović. Although he has signed certain contracts for co-financing youth projects in the past period, the Gold Badge recipients still have no information on whether they have qualified for co-financing costs, even though enrollment for the new academic year has already been completed.

"This situation is causing dissatisfaction among doctoral students, who have been waiting for months for information on co-financing for the previous year of their studies, while the next academic year is already well underway, and we had to pay for it," states one of the third-cycle students at the University of Sarajevo.

Incidentally, the Public Call was supposed to be published in 2024, but was actually published only in the middle of summer 2025. Thus, due to the fault of the Government of Sarajevo Canton and the relevant ministry, students lost a year, and it is questionable when they will receive the money.

This should be one of the first priorities of the new Minister of Higher Education, Dušanka Bošković, who was appointed to the position by the Sarajevo Canton Assembly on October 15. Bošković is a full professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and was also the Vice-Rector for Quality during the mandate of the University of Sarajevo Rector Tarik Zaimović.

The last contracts for co-financing the costs of the third cycle of studies were signed in January 2024 with 29 recipients of the Gold Badge, for which 203,300 KM was allocated.

In this way, the Government of Sarajevo Canton is sending a bad message to the best students it allegedly wants to keep in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and if the attitude towards the Gold Badges does not change soon, Sarajevo will become an exporter of the best students, who will be welcomed with open arms by numerous universities.