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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Improving Serbian language teaching abroad priority

Belgrade, 28 April 2008

Serbian Minister of Diaspora Milica Cubrilo said today that Serbs living abroad must play a responsible part in events in their homeland and have the right to take part in Serbia’s political life.

In an interview for today’s edition of the daily Vecernje Novosti, Cubrilo spoke about registration of voters abroad, improving Serbian language teaching in the Diaspora and projects for which the ministry is providing financial support.

Are you satisfied with the response to the campaign “Show That You Care” for a higher voter turnout abroad?

Some 52,000 Serbs living abroad have been registered on the electoral roll to vote in the upcoming parliamentary elections, which is a 40% increase compared to January. Assuming that the entire Serbian electorate abroad consists of nearly half a million people, only 5% have registered, which is a rather small percentage of the Diaspora.

About novelties in the voting procedure abroad:

The Ministry of Diaspora has launched an initiative to remove the condition of providing a permanent address, considering the fact that people often move from city to city and sometimes from country to country due to work, and we are near to accomplishing this. The second, big problem is the manner of voting. Of course the simplest way to register voters and to vote is email, but this demand is still under consideration and it will take four years to organise an electronic voting system. The good news is that there will be 13 new polling stations abroad for the May 11 elections.

Improving Serbian language teaching abroad:

This is one of the priority tasks for the ministry since it is alarming that by the end of the 80s more than 100,000 children abroad were learning the Serbian language in one form or another and today this number is down to 17,000. The number of teachers working abroad also decreased and now there are only 44.

Who is responsible for the additional schooling of children abroad?

The Ministry of Education is responsible, and currently the ministry is trying to overcome certain difficulties before dealing with the problem in a systematic manner. The Education Ministry has still not announced vacancies for new teachers and if this is not done by May 10 then it is possible that the teaching programme will come to a halt.

Is the number of teachers financed by the Education Ministry insufficient?

We are making efforts to raise the number of teachers from 44 to 1000 and this should be one of the tasks of the future government. In 11 countries the Serbian language is being taught through church schools owing to the enthusiasm of individual teachers.

What steps have been taken by the Diaspora Ministry?

We financed the supply of school books and other teaching aids in the period from June 2007 to April 2008, with a sum of RSD 800,000. We also supported the programme for the professional training of Serbian language and culture teachers in the Diaspora, as well as projects chosen at the competition announced last year.

What are these projects and what do they aim to achieve?

“Transpoetika – a digital platform for Serbian language and literature” is a project for which we set aside RSD 1.5 million, and it aims to digitalise Serbian cultural heritage and the development of language. RSD 546,000 was allocated for a project to produce two DVDs which present the most beautiful Serbian fairytales, folk stories and myths. The project titled “Interplov” provides free of charge interactive internet stories and games for children, and is worth €6,250. The ministry will also finance an expert conference in Budapest to the tune of €3,125, where the main topic of discussion will be the position of the languages of ethnic minorities in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary and Romania.