Aleksandra Jerkov, Chairperson of the Committee on Education, Science, Technological Development and the Information Society, and Vesna Rakonjac, Chairperson of the Committee on Labour, Social Issues, Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction, greeted the attending and opened the public hearing saying that this is a burning issue in the state and a vital problem of the individual. Vesna Rakonjac said that there is a whole spectrum of occupations that one can get qualifications for which do not exist on the job market, whereas on the other hand there are occupations for which we lack properly qualified people and “if we had proper education and suitable training for children they would find jobs more easily”.

Minister of Education Science and Technological Development Srdjan Verbic said that Serbia is the only country in Europe without a National Qualifications Framework and the framework will remain just so much writing if the drafting of said document does not involve employers, trade unions and entrepreneurs. “The lack of a National Qualifications Framework is also a problem for Euro-integration because it makes it impossible to join the international division of work and ensure an exchange of knowledge in both directions”.

Jelena Markovic, deputy head of the Serbian Government’s Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit, presented the results of the survey on the citizens’ views on education, which showed that the citizens see the lack of practical work experience as the biggest problem and half the examinees believe the education now to be worse than five years ago.

Jelena Jakovljevic, member of the Expert team for the development of an integrated qualification framework in Serbia, answered how a qualification comes to be, explaining that the first thing to do is to analyse the job market and then standardise qualifications and the system of education, and that this is the trend to follow.

Vesna Rakonjac closed the public hearing saying that two topical sessions are to be organised with young people and entrepreneurs so that they could be included in the drafting of the National Qualifications Framework.