At its sitting held on 1 March 2006, the Education Committee of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia endorsed the 2005 Activity Report of the Secondary Education Sector of the Ministry of Education and Sports.

The Report was presented by Zorica Blagojevic, Radovan Zivkovic and Bojan Ristic of the Secondary Education Sector. They underlined that the Ministry’s aim was to transform schools by introducing modern education programmes, which should, in turn, lead to purging training for obsolete vocations from the education system.

Committee members asked for additional information on the quality and conditions of work at secondary schools, grading standards, and the programme of organising school field trips. Ministry officials said that such data would be available only after a national school testing programme had been implemented, while a set of regulations on organising field trips was in the final stages of completion.

The Committee discussed lists of nominees for membership on National Higher Education Councils, proposed by the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the Serbian Conference of Universities, the Serbian Conference of College Headmasters, and the Executive Council of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The Committee resolved to instruct the Government and the Conference of Universities to amend their lists, as they had both nominated the same person.

The Committee resolved to ask the National Assembly to dismiss the chairman of the National Education Council, academician Mihailo Djuric, who should, however, still remain on the Council. Committee chairperson Donka Banovic supported the request for dismissal by citing complaints against the Council, which has held only one sitting (convened by the Minister of Education and Sports, Slobodan Vuksanovic) on 9 September 2005, since it formation.