Rector at center of controversy "to resign"

Rector at center of controversy "to resign"

BELGRADE -- Rector and owner of the private Megatrend University Mića Jovanović on Friday announced he would resign from all positions, and revealed he was in London.

Jovanović told the Serbian public broadcaster RTS that he took the trip in order to obtain "fresh proof" that his doctoral title was authentic, although he noted that he was already in possession of "complete documentation, beside the documentation at the University of Belgrade."

Serbia's minister of education on Thursday announced that there was no evidence Jovanović had indeed defended a doctoral dissertation in London, although the one he said he earned in Slovenia was authentic.

On Friday, Jovanović said he traveled to London "for two, three hours to refute those heinous lies," and added that the accusations leveled against him were "a constructed story."

"The thing is that my doctoral thesis was diligently submitted over 30 years ago. It was filed within the Council for National Academic Awards and I submitted and defended my doctoral dissertation in front of this institution. That was a government institution, that was at the time above all universities," he stressed.

Jovanović then said that this was "not a faculty, but something similar to our National Council for High Education", which, according to him, "engaged all university institutions - in my case it was the LSE, the one that is being contested, and the other is the PP, which grew into a university."

According to Jovanović, his doctoral thesis was earned "at the British Council, it was like that at the time because I paid lower fees and had some other benefits, but my mentor was Stephen Wolf and there were...