10,000 education employees are surplus - minister

(Tanjug, file)

10,000 education employees are surplus - minister

BELGRADE -- Education Minister Srdjan Verbic says Serbia has 10,000 surplus education sector employees, and that it will be impossible to "redistribute" all of them.

"Our statisticians will give the exact number. The role of the unions and schoolmasters is crucial, so there is the fairest possible rearrangement of jobs in each school, and schools will recommend to us to whom to offer severance pay. We must enter the next school year with an optimized number of employees," he told the daily Blic.

Asked about ways to "solve the problem of the longest-lasting strike in the history of Serbia's education," Verbic answered: "We're on the same side, we must act in line with what is our job."

"We will increase salaries to teachers and they will be the first to see an increase in the public sector, I just don't know when it will happen," said the minister, who several days ago held an unsuccessful meeting with union representatives.

Asked what he planned to do if those teachers who are on strike refuse to give students their final grades at the end of the second semester, he said this "will not happen."

"I don't know what the state's moves can be if somebody starts to systematically break the law. The question is so far removed from everyday practice that it's hard to answer it," Verbic said.

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