Quale università in Republika Srpska?

If a foreigner, with basic university education, were to come to BiH he would be astonished after a short while. Apart from the recently established university in Zenica, there also exist universities in Sarajevo, the Serbian part of Sarajevo, Banja Luka, eastern Mostar, western Mostar, and Tuzla. One might conclude that a small country where attention appears to be concentrated on education and, therefore, the prosperous future-the country that there would be a low illiteracy rate, and the war would be an unhappy reality not influenced by their own citizens, but by somebody else. Unfortunately, the truth is completely different.

This is still a country with a high illiteracy rate, whose eight universities and faculties in Brcko and Bihac create a false picture about education and the quality of education. As an example of the university crisis, Clod Kiefer high councilor from the Office of the High Representative mentioned that the present situation was more than unsettling. The students were complaining about professors, the quality of classes was very low, and there was also a lack of personnel. The act to establish a university in RS where two thirds of professors had to be permanently employed was not respected in practice, or maybe just in the first year of study. The faculties established earlier like Law, Economy, Technology, and Mechanics had enough teaching personnel and rooms necessary for work, emphasized Rector Prof. Dr Dragiljub Mirjanic. The others can befall as they may, but all of society carries the consequences.

"We are aware that the war left a mark on the system of education, but the question now is the quality of teaching personnel. If we take a look at Banja Luka’s university, established 25 years ago, we can see that not too many doctorate and masters’ dissertations have been accomplished", emphasized Mirjanic. According to him, concerning the number and quality of personnel, the situation at the Banja Luka’s university is not too bad in comparison with the other universities in BiH. What does "not too bad" mean, and what is the situation like in other faculties in RS? We can only guess knowing the problems of personnel and space that exist in the faculties of Architecture, Forestry, Medicine and the Agricultural Universities or Art Academy. These faculties have neither rooms to work in nor professors to teach. The classes were barely finished thanks to professors from Serbia. Neither the act about universities nor the lack of personnel and space have had an influence, so in RS the faculties grow as mushrooms after the rain, beginning from Mrkonjic Grad to Trebinje. The students enrol without any guarantees that they will have a decent education worth the money they are paying for it. They can only hope that they will have a diploma. The image of high university education dominates schools and faculties without teachers and students without knowledge. The conclusion is that the only way out is radical reform. But, the new government has said nothing about that. What is even worse is that the academic community keeps its mouth shut, as if this is only the government’s problem.

The problem of BiH, where there are three different peoples and three religions, is reflecting in the schooling, though it is an area which should not be affected at all. Politics is trying to carry out its plan over the helpless children who are not aware of the new trap they are falling into. The best example is schooling in Brcko. We should remind ourselves that in October of last year, when the pupils were joined into a mutual school, but in different shifts, the protests and fights occurred from both sides because they went to same school. International supervisor for Brcko, Henry Clark, issued an order last year, concerning the Act on education in primary and secondary schools in Brcko district, which is a real Bosnian mixture. The new agreement which was signed on June 27, 2001 by Mujo Demirovic , federal minister for education , science, sport and culture and Gojko Savanovic , minister for education in RS should lead to the formation of a joint strategy for the modernization of primary and secondary education. However, as our people say: "Who will live to see it."