"Battle" for winter break; Education Union reacted to Dr Kon's proposal: No way

"Battle" for winter break; Education Union reacted to Dr Kon's proposal: No way

He stated this morning that the winter break should start before St. Nicholas, that is, on December 19, among other things, because then gastarbeiters from EU countries return to the country, where the delta strain of coronavirus is "raging".

According to the education unions for the Telegraf portal, the teachers reacted violently to this announcement, because they could not manage to organize the end of the first semester in just two weeks, as much as they would have left if the winter break was moved according to Kon's recommendation.

"It is too early for the winter holidays to begin before St. Nicholas. And it is too late to let us know now. There is still a lot of work to be done till end the semester. We now have 19 days to do everything we would otherwise do in 30 days. It is not possible," said Jasna Janković, Chairman of the Union of Education Workers of Serbia (USPRS).

As she vividly explained, Serbian teachers should give written assignments in the first week of December, mathematics teachers in the second week, and foreign language teachers in the third. "And now we don't even know if it will be that third week," she points out.

Milorad Antić from the Forum of Secondary Vocational Schools says that educators are not robots. "We are not working on the on / off button. 110.000 teachers who have their own curriculum work in education. You cannot tell them today that everything is changing as of tomorrow. Our proposal was for the holiday to start on December 24, and we sent that proposal to the Ministry education, but for now there is no answer", states Antić.