Professors seeking 'protection of academic honour' in Serbia

Professors seeking 'protection of academic honour' in Serbia

After a scandal sparked by suspicion that the doctoral theses of certain Serbian politicians were plagiarised, about 1,800 Serbian scientists and professors submitted a petition to the Serbian government and called for "the protection of academic honour."

Serbia's education minister told SETimes that he will work to strengthen the independent bodies tasked with checking the quality of education following a series of scandals that have beset Serbia's higher education system.

Minister of Education Srdjan Verbic said the Commission for Accreditation and Quality Control currently lacks the necessary capacity to do its work and needs improvement, but the ministry will not create additional commissions to do similar work.

"Whatever commission the Ministry creates, someone will be dissatisfied and will say that it was selected in a biased manner for the purpose of making this or that decision," said the minister, adding that an effort to improve education will also be made through the new law on higher education.

Serbia's higher education system came under scrutiny following the publication by a group of scientists on the Pescanik website, which determined that the doctoral thesis of Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic was plagiarised. Stefanovic claimed that his thesis was original and the website that posted the analysis of the thesis was hacked and shut down several times.

Next, it was found that Stefanovic's mentor and president of private Megatrend University in Belgrade, Mica Jovanovic, never got his doctoral degree at the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, as he had said in his biography. Jovanovic stated that the attack on him was...