Jovina Gymnasium: Ten More Teachers Fired After Protest

Ten more teachers at the Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj Gymnasium in Novi Sad, better known as Jovina Gymnasium, were fired today, September 2, around 2 p.m., N1 has learned. The teachers were employed on fixed-term contracts, and their dismissal is being linked to their attendance at a solidarity rally held the day before, on September 1, for colleagues who had already lost their jobs.

Teacher Rima Grujic told N1 that after yesterday’s rally, ten teachers were called in to meet with the school administration. She said that by that point, one of the summoned teachers had already received her termination notice. School principal Radivoje P. Stojkovic declined to comment on the new dismissals, saying he was in a meeting and would respond later.

Five teachers let go at the start of the school year

Today’s dismissals extend a pattern that began in late August, when five teachers lost their jobs:

• Biljana Prlina, a Serbian language teacher and head of the school’s union branch, who had worked at Jovina Gymnasium for 14 years
• Dragan Alanov, a mathematics teacher with ten years at the school
• Atila Jakubec, a chemistry teacher employed for five years
• Natasa Katic, a civic education teacher
• Rajna Stamenov, a physics teacher

Prlina said the principal told her that after 14 years of work, there was no longer a need for her, since her contract had expired.

Union alleges abuse of office

Prlina described the principal’s conduct to N1 as a form of abuse of office.

I would personally describe it as a kind of abuse of office, because for years the principal has been running the staff this way, trying to manipulate people through this type of fixed-term employment.

She added that the principal also pressures staff through the school’s staffing plan, by cutting teaching hours. According to her, employees with long careers in education, in some cases more than twenty years, are given below a full teaching load, while teachers without comparable experience get a full load or even more than a full load. Prlina believes the decision also has a political dimension, since every teacher who was suspended or left without a position had been a member of the school’s union. She said the union would use every legal avenue available to help staff resolve their employment status.

Beyond these five, another five teachers at Jovina Gymnasium were suspended at the end of the last school year. A court has since ordered four of them, Marija Vasic, Rima Grujic, Jovan Travica and Dragan Vulic, reinstated, but the school has still not issued them official reinstatement decisions.

The sources diverge on one detail here: a report by the Naslovi.net portal places Prlina among the group of previously suspended teachers, while according to N1 she was dismissed as part of the group of five whose contracts were not extended at the end of August, separate from the five suspended at the end of the previous school year. Pending an official statement from the school, this discrepancy remains unresolved.

Classes held outside the main building for a second year running

Students at Jovina Gymnasium are attending classes outside their main building for a second consecutive school year, after the structure was declared unsafe due to the condition of its central dome. Classes are now split across three locations around the city, including the premises of the Mechanical Engineering School.

It was there, at the Mechanical Engineering School, that students staged a protest today. They gathered outside Principal Stojkovic’s office, making noise with whistles and vuvuzelas, before entering the office itself chanting that they would not give up their teachers.

We wrote about the first wave of dismissals and the class boycott earlier this month, in the article “Jovina Gymnasium: Five Teachers Out of a Job, Students Boycott Classes.” With ten new dismissals today, the number of teachers who have either lost their jobs since late August or are still waiting on court-ordered reinstatement has passed fifteen.