Serbian Prime Minister inaugurates OSCE-supported multilingual university department in southern Serbia

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić officially inaugurated the permanent premises of the Bujanovac Department of the Subotica Faculty of Economics of the Novi Sad University on 17 November 2015, marking another milestone in a long-term OSCE project to promote multilingual and multi-ethnic higher education in southern Serbia.

Twelve students also graduated on 17 November, becoming the first graduates of the Bujanovac Department. A further ten are expected to graduate in the coming weeks.

“I was especially proud to see that the students speaking in Serbian and Albanian on the podium understood each other’s languages,” said Vučić, speaking at the ceremony.

The Bujanovac Department is first truly multilingual, multi-ethnic higher-education curriculum in southern Serbia. An initiative of the OSCE Mission to Serbia, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM) and the Co-ordination Body for the Municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa, the project started in 2009 with a feasibility study on higher education development in Preševo and Bujanovac.

The permanent premises were mainly funded by the European Union.

EU Ambassador to Serbia Michael Davenport said: “Today, we have shown that joint efforts can yield results. We have overcome many challenges, including prejudice. It wasn’t easy, but through our joint forces, we proved that it was possible to build this department in Bujanovac.”

The Department was first opened in October 2011 with almost 100 students from both ethnic Serb and ethnic Albanian communities.

Since then, numerous partners have come on board, and today, the Stakeholders’ Committee is chaired by the HCNM and includes representatives of the Serbian Education Ministry, the Co-ordination Body for the Municipalities of Preševo, Bujanovac and Medveđa, the Rector of the University of Novi Sad, the Subotica Faculty of Economics of the University of Novi Sad, the Municipality of Bujanovac, the National Council of the Albanian National Minority, the European Union Delegation to Serbia, European PROGRES/UNOPS, and the OSCE Mission to Serbia.