SCHOLARS OF THE COORDINATION BODY FOR PRESEVO, BUJANOVAC AND MEDVEDJA IN BELGRADE - OCTOBER 16, 2009

16. November 2009.

BELGRADE - On Wednesday, November 18, 2009, 152 secondary school students from Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, who received scholarships from the Coordination Body, will come to Belgrade. They are going to visit the most important governmental institutions, and towards the end of their visit, which is for many of them their first visit to Serbia’s capital city, President of the Coordination Body, Minister Milan Markovic, and Minister of Education, Zarko Obradovic, are going to ceremoniously present scholarship contracts to them. In addition, President of the Republic of Serbia, Boris Tadic, Chairwoman of the National Parliament, Slavica Djukic Dejanovic, and Assistant Mayor of Belgrade, Radmila Hrustanovic.

Accompanying the students for the visit will be representatives of the secondary schools, presidents of the municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja, Ragmi Mustafa, Saip Kamberi and Slobodan Draskovic, as well as MP Riza Halimi.

In June 2009, the Coordination Body announced a public competition for scholarships to secondary school students from Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja. 819 students entered the competition, while 152 students received scholarships. The scholarships were, first and foremost, awarded to children that are without one or both parents, while the other criteria for receiving scholarships included social position of the children’s parents or guardians and the marks they had received in the previous school year. In accordance with those criteria, 58 students from Presevo, 55 from Bujanovac and 39 from Medvedja got the scholarships. Out of the selected secondary-school students, 99 are Albanians, 41 Serbs and 12 Roma. Each single scholarship amounts to 5,000 dinars a month and the students will be receiving this amount until the end of the school year.

This is the first time that the Coordination Body for the Municipalities of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja awarded scholarships to secondary-school students whose families are in a difficult material position. It has been planned to announce another open competition for the next school year.

This activity was supported by Srpska Bank, which will give each scholar a savings book with a 4,000 dinar deposit in it. The scholars will also receive appropriate gifts from “Telekom Srbija” a.d. The Coordination Body of the government of the Republic of Serbia got the support of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission to Serbia, which paid for the trip and stay of South Serbia’s secondary school students in Belgrade.