On 14 September 2010, Dr Zoran Sami, Education Committee Chairman, talked to the presidents of the Serbian Geographical Society, Prof. Dr Stevan Stankovic and Historians Society of Serbia “Stojan Novakovic”, Prof. Dr Momcilo Pavlovic. The meeting was attended by Rados Ljusic, Natasa Djuka and Petar Ivankovic, HSS “Stojan Novakovic” members, and Slavica Boskovic president of the SGS Teachers Association.

In the meeting, the presidents of these societies presented the problem and explained the position and current status of the national block subjects geography and history in both high schools and all other educational profiles, including experimental classes. Professors Stankovic and Pavlovic stressed that, due to the Republic of Serbia strategic and national interests, national geography and history comply with the law and should remain to be compulsory subjects of general education in all vocational high schools, as well as in all other educational profiles, including experimental classes. In the last four years about 20 000 high schoolers on the territory of the Republic of Serbia were educated according to experimental curriculums and programmes which listed geography and history as elective subjects. The curriculums of the experimental educational profiles introduced by reform into the compulsory education system include significant innovations which transfer geography and history from the group of compulsory subjects in regular classes into the group of elective subjects in experimental classes. National geography content has been excluded from the experimental curriculums offering instead as elective various specialised geography programme content such as cattle breeding geography, food geography, medical geography etc depending on the educational profile. The guests asked the Education Committee Chairman to brief the deputies and Committee members on the problem as geography and history should remain in the compulsory subject group for all educational profiles and all curriculums and programmes, including the experimental ones, in all high schools on the territory of the Republic of Serbia. They proposed a solution according to which the geography lesson fund should be 70 lessons in the first grade, with a programme proposal “Serbian geography and contemporary processes in Europe and the world”, and make it a compulsory vocational subject in the second and third grade of those schools where the vocation necessitates it. Also, that the history lesson fund be 140 lessons with a programme of general, national and specialised history. At the same time the guests suggested that the Committee, along with the National Education Council and Ministry of Education, initiate the creation of a commission comprising representatives of scientific institutions and expert associations for the purpose of reviewing the experimental curriculums for all educational profiles before their inclusion into the compulsory education system. Education Committee Chairman Dr Zoran Sami promised that he would present the problem at the next Committee sitting so as to resolve the status and position of the subjects of geography and history.