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The Government of the Republic of Serbia

In the service of citizens

Public campaign on prevention of violence in schools presented

Belgrade, 9 March 2010

Serbian Minister of Education Zarko Obradovic presented the campaign "Let’s stop violence together – violence does not stop by itself” today, with the aim of this campaign being to completely eradicate violence in schools or to at least reduce it.

Judita Reichenberg and Zarko Obradovic

Obradovic said at a press conference that this campaign is launched by the Serbian Ministry of Education in cooperation with UNICEF. Since the beginning of this year, 140 less severe cases of violence have been recorded in schools.

The Minister said that the campaign aims at increasing the number of institutions that will participate in the programme “School without violence” and added that schools that get included in the programme will receive €4,500 for its implementation.

Director of UNICEF in Serbia Judita Reichenberg said that in 2005, when the programme was launched, it included only four schools, and today it includes 196 schools from 65 towns in Serbia, with more than 135,000 students and 12,000 teachers. A timely spotting of violence is far more effective than punishment; Reichenberg explained and added that students of the final grades of elementary school require most attention.

She said that cooperation with the local community and with parents was rated as the least successful component of the programme.

The author of the book "Violence in Schools" Dragan Popadic said that Serbia is among those countries with a lower level of violence in schools.

He added that children’s aggression is caused among other things by tolerance of violence in society and its presence in the media.

Researcher from the Agency Strategic Marketing Snezana Savic said that boys are more prone to expressing physical violence, while psychological violence is more common among girls – gossip or exclusion from the peer group.