San Francisco Frontiers - 'Degraded profession': Serbia teachers rattled by attacks

Djurickovic was helping students exit the bus in Belgrade one minute and the next the child's mother was screaming, punching and ultimately ripping out a chunk of the teacher's hair.

"While I was on the ground, her husband hit my head and spat on me," 61-year-old Djurickovic told AFP of the June assault. "I don't know if I will ever feel safe again in school."

Hundreds of attacks on educators have been reported to police since 2022, unions say, and teachers are now demanding urgent action from the government to protect them.

Worries over violence against educators in Serbia have been building for years, but a 2022 video of students pulling a chair out from under a teacher cast a harsh new spotlight on the issue.

"This case led to daily attacks coming to the surface," said Snjezana Pavlovic, president of the Belgrade committee of the Union of Education Workers of Serbia.

In addition to the hundreds of reported cases, many others go unreported because teachers fear retribution, according to the Independent Union of Education Workers of Serbia (NSPRS).

Serbian police did not respond to an AFP request for information on the violence.

- 'Expansion of violence' -

A series of factors seem to be contributing to the attacks on teachers, including clashes with parents and broader problems in Serbia.

Djurickovic, the attacked teacher, said the violence happened after the mother accused her of pushing her child -- a claim the educator denies.

In the video of the attack, seen by AFP, parents and students try to get the attackers to stop, telling them the teacher had not been violent.

"We are living in a moment where the expansion of violence is very significant. Everyone is exposed to it, including children and teachers," psychologist Ana Mirkovic to AFP.

Mirkovic said many factors appear to be contributing to the teacher attacks, such as aggressive behaviour within families and parents interfering in teachers' work.

On the same day Djurickovic was attacked, the mother of student assaulted a teacher at another school in Belgrade because she was unhappy with the child's grade.

The unions say teachers had long faced daily confrontations with students, but in the last year, parents have become the primary attackers, mostly over grades.

"Violence against teachers by children has always existed, but we can say that they (children) are not aware of their actions," Pavlovic told AFP.

"But what terrifies me is that now parents are attacking teachers... that's a new, higher level of violence," the union representative added.

Over the years, one of the measures to prevent violence has been the introduction of a school police officer.

However, as the NSPRS union president Dusan Kokot warned, teachers are now being attacked not only in schools but also on the streets.

- Urgent action demanded -

In May, unions and teachers protested in Belgrade over escalating school violence, with more than 700 schools across Serbia suspending work for a day.

The main demand from teachers -- who make 86,681 Serbian dinars ($805) per month, which is below the national average of $895 -- was to amend the country's penal code.

They urged the government to make attacks on teachers an offence that carries up to eight years in prison, drawing a pledge from authorities to get the amendments before parliament this year.

Unions and teachers have criticised the official response as too slow, and have threatened to strike until meaningful action is taken.

For the next school year, they plan a "white strike" aimed at curbing violence, during which they would withhold grades until new protective measures are in place.

"The profession has been completely degraded in every aspect," said Pavlovic, calling the violence a "burning issue" that needs urgent action.

C.Williams--SFF