Sunday, February 22, 2009

Millions for beating / Not a penny for students - Reason? This is Serbia.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us The Serbian government decided to pay the amount of a million dollars ($ 1,000,000) for a "student" (basketball player more likely), in exchange for his freedom. Namely, Miladin Kovačević is charged severely for injuring US colleague, Bryan Steinhauer. The newpaper that reported this, Borba, was charged for revealing "Governmental secrets" - the news was investigated and proven correct.

Meanwhile, students in Serbia are outraged, because there was a change in the law for students of higher education
Here's the pdf announcement for the Medical Faculty of the University of Belgrade:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12733383/Uslovi-Za-Upis-2009-2010-medicinski-fakulter-u-beogradu-izmena-statuta
http://www.med.bg.ac.rs/?init=news&nid=2963&sid=5


Until now, students in Serbia were allowed to continue being on "budget" status, meaning they could study free of charge, even if they had repeated an academic year. Things changed and after this announcement, whether it is the first time you repeated the academic year or whether it's your second or third, it doesn't matter - the minute you repeat the year, you are automatically sent to , without the possibility to go back to on budget free studying.

Such acts as the one above and the event with Miladin Kovačević, really raise eyebrows, not only among students, but the whole working community of Serbia is opposed to this.
The next step the Government of Serbia is about to take, is to block ALL students and keep the ones that are regarded as the "best" - *ahem* no comment. Here's a news article about it:
http://www.24sata.rs/vesti.php?id=45826


Apparently, giving out millions for unknown (and classified as "top secret"!) purposes is more important than funding students (not basketball players), willing to learn and work.

And this is Serbia - a country where politicians promise and spend everything on unnecessary trips, on expensive cars and 101 suits; where politicians act like children in the Serbian Parliament, instead of teaming up together to resolve an issue; where politicians beat each other up; where politicians accuse fellow politicians for syphilis (or whatever it was), and the latter go and spend government budget on (many) unnecessary blood check-ups, just to prove them wrong; finally, this is a country that pays 1 million dollars and marks the situation as highly classified to free a guy that has beaten up one of his colleagues.

    1 comment:

    ^Nikos^ said...

    This you describe is not only Serbia. I am sure that this is how every country in the planet works.