At the meeting of Economic Caucus in the Parliament on July 7th, we presented our policy proposal for introducing school choice in the form of voucherization to the Minister of Education, Science and Technological Development Srdjan Verbic. This is the second time that we discuss this idea with members of parliament and the first time we had an opportunity to present it to representatives of the Ministry.
After Milos Nikolic, president of Libek, introduced the Minister and MPs to Libek’s work so far and our future plans concerning voucherization, Mihailo Gajic, director of Libek’s Research Unit outlined the main characteristics of the proposal.
Minister Verbic stressed that there are certain preconditions that must be met in order to implement the voucher model in Serbian educational system. First of all, there is the issue of public-private partnerships that has been only touched on by the proposal for the Law on Basis of Educational System that is currently in public hearing. Second important question, in the words of the Minister, is enrollment policy which has to be based on clear data and thorough research of the labour market so that it can be deduced which vocations are needed.
The Minister agreed that our proposal’s diagnosis is spot on and refered for aditional comparative analysis of other countries experience with voucherization. After this meeting we will further strengthen our partnership with all interested associations and individuals in order to make as many people as possible aware of the advantages of proposed model.