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Exactly 10 days after the large student protest held in Belgrade on 15 March 2025, a decree of the Government of Serbia entered into force by which it effectively abolished research work at faculties and punished all professors who support the student blockades.
The Government of Serbia adopted the Decree Amending the Decree on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget, which changes the way the salaries of teachers and associates at higher education institutions are calculated. It set out that the time required for teaching and for the research/artistic work of teachers and associates, 20 hours a week each within a 40-hour working week, changes to a ratio of five hours for research/artistic work and 35 hours for teaching.
According to the interpretation of university professors, the Decree provided that the research work of teachers and associates would account for 12.5 per cent in the calculation of pay, while teaching would be valued at 87.5 per cent. In practice, this meant that in a period when faculties are not holding classes, as was the case during the blockades, associates would receive only 12.5 per cent of their salary, given that only research work is taken into account.
The Conference of Universities of Serbia (KONUS), made up of nine state and nine private universities, condemned in the strongest terms this "ill-considered and unlawful action by the Government of Serbia, which further damages the state's relationship with higher education institutions and deepens general distrust in the authority of the competent bodies", while deans, professors, assistants and other staff of the University of Belgrade submitted to the Constitutional Court an initiative for a review of the constitutionality and legality of this decree.
This decree was the culmination of the authorities' efforts to try to extinguish the student protests, which, soon after they began in late November and early December 2024, grew into months-long civic protests against the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Aleksandar Vučić.
They condemned the violence against citizens seeking accountability for the canopy collapse in Novi Sad, the arrests of activists and police torture. "The violence against the students is not an isolated case, so we call on other students to launch blockades of their faculties as well," the sviublokade.fdu Instagram account said, with a clear call: "Everyone into blockades" ("Svi u blokade").
Students of numerous Belgrade faculties soon joined the blockades, among the first the Faculty of Philology, the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Science and Mathematics, the Faculty of Architecture, the School of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Agriculture… The blockade of the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade followed on 2 December. This was the start of the largest and longest student blockades and protests in history, joined by faculties and colleges across the country, as well as by secondary schools. The student protests soon grew into civic protests, blockades and rallies that brought together tens of thousands of citizens, and the one on 15 March 2025 several hundred thousand. The students' demands began with the publication of the complete documentation on the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station, the dropping of charges against those arrested and detained at protests, the filing of criminal complaints against those who attacked students and professors, and an increase in the higher education budget, and ended with a demand for early elections to be called.
At a plenum held at the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade on 10 December 2024, Rector Vladan Đokić read out a statement from the Extended Rector's Board, which strongly supported the students in fulfilling the demands they had put forward as self-aware and academic citizens, and called for urgent action by the competent authorities to meet their demands. "The University stands in defence of students and colleagues who face unacceptable insults in the media, physical attacks and threats, as well as impermissible rhetoric directed at the academic community," Đokić said. The statement also said that faculty managements would not sanction students who, by protesting, are safeguarding the integrity of the academic community, especially the critical thinking and action of students as a vital part of our society.
The blockades continued. Large rallies followed, along with calls for a general strike, protest marches and gatherings in major cities. The largest rally up to that point was the 24-hour blockade of Autokomanda, held on 27 January 2025, from which the message was sent that the student demands had not been met and that the blockades would continue.
Invoking Article 111 of the Constitution of Serbia, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, on 3 February invited the Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade to begin, on Wednesday 5 February, at a time convenient for them, a dialogue in which a solution would be found to the blockade of teaching at higher education institutions.
"Respecting the fact that the Extended Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade supported the current student protests in its statement of 10 December 2024, I am sure you are aware that the current situation is harmful in the long run not only to the teaching process at higher education institutions and to the students themselves, but also to the development of education, science and society as a whole," Vučić said.
He added that if students and professors of higher education institutions take the position that some of the demands have not been met, or that the demands have not been met in full, it is necessary to open a dialogue about it.
"I am convinced that only through dialogue can we jointly establish whether, and to what extent, the students' demands have been met, and specify all the activities that need to be undertaken for those demands to be met in the expected way," Vučić stated.
The Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade decided not to accept the invitation, stating that a series of inconsistencies in the public statements of representatives of state bodies gave no assurance that a dialogue leading to the fulfilment of the student demands was possible, nor that it would be effective if organised between two sides that have no mandate to discuss the demands and to whom the demands were not even addressed.
"The invitation to dialogue comes at a moment when all moral and legal norms have been overstepped, in an atmosphere of general distrust. As representatives of the University and academic citizens, we are further discouraged from believing that the proposed dialogue is possible by the continuous attacks against the academic community in the media space, and the even more brutal, impermissible physical attacks in public space," the statement said, stressing that the University of Belgrade once again insists that the competent institutions meet the student demands.
"We thank you for the invitation and assure the President and the public that as long as we work in accordance with the duties entrusted to us and within the limits of our powers and competences, we are working for the good of the university community, students and society as a whole. In that spirit, we remain open to talks, with full academic and personal responsibility," the statement stressed.
Before that, students of the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade had spoken out in a statement calling on the Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade to reject the invitation to dialogue, in which they said that the President of Serbia is an institution that "has a limited number of mostly ceremonial powers".
"Regarding the invocation of Article 111 of the Constitution, we believe that since the start of the student blockades the institution in question has been working on everything except achieving state unity, and we see no sign that anything will change in that regard. Besides, the demands were put forward by the students, not by the University management, so it is up to us to say whether they have been met," the students said.
The decree that effectively cut salaries at universities, adopted on 24 March, was passed by the caretaker Government of Serbia. Namely, on 28 January, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević had resigned over the beating of students in Novi Sad. The evening before, four young men burst out of the SNS headquarters in the city and attacked five students, one of whom was lightly injured, while a female student's jaw was broken.
On 26 March, 450 deans, professors, assistants and other staff of the University of Belgrade submitted to the Constitutional Court an initiative for a review of the constitutionality and legality of the Decree Amending the Decree on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget, together with a proposal for an interim measure, assessing that the decree was not in line with the Law on the Government, the Law on Higher Education and the Constitution of Serbia.
The deans and professors consider the Decree unconstitutional and unlawful, because a Government whose mandate has ended has no authority to adopt such a decree, which was adopted hastily and without an adequate expert and public debate.
By adopting such a decree, according to those who submitted the initiative for a review of its constitutionality, the constitutional principle of university autonomy and academic freedom was violated, as were the Law on Higher Education and the right to work, that is, the right to fair remuneration for work. As the most important reason, they cited the consequences of applying the contested Decree for the academic community.
"Increasing the weekly teaching norm from 20 to 35 hours represents an increase of 75 per cent. Time for research/artistic work is thereby reduced to a minimum, which in the medium and long term would set back the research/artistic productivity of the university, and with it the quality of teaching (which should rest on contemporary scientific knowledge/artistic achievements)," the explanatory statement says.
The Conference of Universities of Serbia assessed that the decree further damages the state's relationship with higher education institutions and deepens general distrust in the authority of the competent bodies.
"The unity of teaching and research, professional and artistic-research activity is one of the fundamental principles on which higher education rests, and their proportional relationship is the most important precondition for ensuring the quality of teaching staff and building the reputation of every higher education institution. We particularly note that the disproportion introduced directly threatens the positioning of our universities on international rankings, given that one of the key ranking parameters is precisely the quality of research work," the statement said.
They asked the relevant state bodies to consider all the consequences of adopting such an act, and the Government of Serbia to urgently repeal the unlawful Decree, which could have devastating consequences for the quality of higher education and the country's scientific and technological development.
Within three days, a petition against his appointment was signed by more than 18,000 people and over 45 civil society organisations, on account of allegations of sexual harassment. From 14 April, dozens of anonymous testimonies from female students were published on the Instagram page of the OsnaŽene association, including allegations of sexual harassment, inappropriate comments and suggestions of a "deal" over grades.
"More than 30 such and similar testimonies, relating mostly to 2021 but also to earlier years, arrived in just three days after we opened the anonymous questionnaire," Nikolina Tomašević of the OsnaŽene association told Radio Free Europe.
The former students did not want to speak publicly to this outlet. One of them, in a video message on the OsnaŽene Instagram page, said that they "always tried not to be alone with Stanković in his office".
"Professor Dejan Vuk Stanković is a man who really liked to stress how much it depended on him whether we would pass exams, graduate and so on. So it doesn't depend on us, it doesn't depend on how much we study and what we do, but solely on him and his goodwill," she said.
After these testimonies were published, Stanković filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons, whom he accused of "endangering safety", "stalking" and "causing panic and disorder".
"Given that the unidentified persons used social networks to publish false information, the case will be forwarded to the Special Department for High-Tech Crime for further action," the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office said on 16 April. The statement also said that, according to the police report, no complaints of sexual harassment had been filed against Stanković.
Rejecting the allegations, Stanković also stated on 15 April that "there is not a single complaint against him, whether at the faculty, or from the police or the Prosecutor's Office".
Slađana Jaćimović, Vice-Dean for Teaching at the Teacher Education Faculty, told Radio Free Europe that they had not received a single complaint, "either signed or anonymous", from female students regarding sexual harassment, and that in 2021 there had been such allegations "at the level of discussions on social networks" against both Stanković and other professors at various faculties.
"We talked to him at the time. His attention was drawn to reflecting on his behaviour, so as not to provoke further discontent with some verbal gesture or comment of his, because the whole context was worrying. It was a kind of media witch-hunt across the entire university," Jaćimović said.
When students of the Teacher Education Faculty voted for a blockade and a suspension of classes in early December 2024, Stanković was the only one to declare himself against the blockade, even though the dean's board supported the students.
In statements before his election as minister, Stanković said that "the methodology of the political struggle of the rebel students and professors resembles treating alcoholism with daily drinking" and that "the whole thing around the demands and the student blockades has gone in the direction of political demands that have little to do with improving the position of students and the university in the process of studying and teaching".
The Rebel University ("Pobunjeni univerzitet") initiative and the informal community Puls beogradskih osnovnih i srednjih škola (Pulse of Belgrade Primary and Secondary Schools) organised a protest in front of the Ministry of Education on 22 April over Stanković's election as Minister of Education.
"Stanković publicly supported repressive measures, denied the legitimacy of the student demands and advocated the use of force against those defending academic and moral values, which is why we consider his election as Minister of Education unacceptable," the initiative said.
The student protests acquired a clear political demand when, on 5 May, "Students in Blockade" called on their official profile for early parliamentary elections to be called, because their demands had not been met even after five months.
"We demand the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of early parliamentary elections in accordance with Article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia!" the students in blockade posted on social networks.
"We believe that democracy is the only right way to resolve a political crisis of this scale, so we call on the people to support the list to which the students in blockade of all higher education institutions in Serbia will give their trust, so that truth may prevail on the scales of justice," the students said.
This protest was organised at a time when the end of the process of faculty blockades was in sight, a process which, in a somewhat altered form, continued through the summer. The blockade of the intersection lasted 17 days, and during that period the intersection of Kneza Miloša and Nemanjina streets was completely blocked, with the support of students, citizens' assemblies (zborovi) and informal groups bringing together staff of other universities in Serbia. During the blockade, the demand that the Government withdraw its decision to form a working group to amend the Law on Higher Education was partly met, while the remaining two concern the repeal of the decree that cut university professors' salaries and the adoption of state-funded enrolment quotas for faculties.
On the penultimate day of the blockade, after the fifth meeting between Prime Minister Đuro Macut and university representatives, the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, said it had been agreed at the meeting that enrolment quotas would remain the same as the previous year, that is, as many as the higher education institutions had requested. "The Government will hold its session by the end of this week and at that session it will decide on the quotas. After that, expert guidelines will be issued and from next week we will be able to announce calls for entrance exams for the next school year. Entrance exams will be organised in July," Đokić said.
Entrance exams were held at the faculties during July, followed by exam periods, and the academic year ended in October 2025. The new school year at the universities officially began in November, which also formally ended the physical blockade of all universities.
On 11 September, the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, sent a letter to the Faculty of Medicine in which he stressed that the Council of this higher education institution had violated the Law on Higher Education in the recent removal of the former dean, Prof. Dr Tatjana Simić.
He pointed out that the reasoning of the decision to remove the dean shows unequivocally that the decision is not in line with the Law on Higher Education, the Statute of the University of Belgrade and the Statute of the Faculty of Medicine.
The Rector also stressed that there is no final decision establishing that the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine committed a serious breach of the Code of Professional Ethics, nor does the Council of the Faculty of Medicine have the right to establish the existence of such a breach itself and record the termination of the dean's term of office, or to appoint an acting dean.
Students in Blockade of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade spoke out, assessing that the dean's removal and the appointment of the acting dean were illegitimate, because the session of the Faculty Council had been riddled with irregularities and conducted in an utterly unacademic tone.
"Most professors left the session, refusing to take part in unlawful proceedings. The reason given for the dean's removal was an alleged 'serious breach of the Code of Professional Ethics of the University of Belgrade', even though the only competent body, the University of Belgrade's Committee on Professional Ethics, had not made a decision on it. In addition, the President of the Council was not present at the session, even though he alone, under the Statute, is authorised to propose an acting dean," said the students, who stated that they had spoken out 10 days after the event because they wanted to establish all the facts.
This conclusion by the Rector was preceded by a letter from the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine, Marija Radovanović, who attended the Council session in question and pointed to numerous unlawful acts in the dismissal of the former dean and the appointment of the new one.
Students in Blockade of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade spoke out on 24 January 2026 and announced that the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine, Marija Radovanović, "after months of persecution by the current unlawfully imposed faculty management, was dismissed yesterday".
"From day one, Marija supported the student blockade of the Faculty of Medicine, and since September she had been pointing out to institutions the unlawful removal of Dean Tatjana Simić and the unlawful actions of the new acting management," the students said, stressing that, although she has whistleblower status, she had been subjected from day one to mobbing by acting dean Nataša Milić and the rest of the dean's board.
"Marija first received pre-dismissal warnings and was suspended, and now her employment has officially been terminated, unlawfully," said the students, who organised a protest on 7 February in support of the dismissed faculty secretary.
On 8 September 2025, Marija Radovanović submitted an official report to the Ministry of Education, the education inspectorate, the Rector of the University and the members of the faculty's Election Council, in which she warned of what she described as the unlawful removal of the then dean, Prof. Dr Tatjana Simić, and the selection of Nataša Milić as acting dean, explaining that part of the session had been recorded and that she had an audio recording confirming this.
After she sent the report, Marija Radovanović's official work email was first shut down, preventing her from further using the faculty's communication address. Soon afterwards she was handed a pre-dismissal warning, on the grounds that, as the competent bodies of the faculty claim, she had committed a serious breach of work obligations and of work discipline by sending an official letter and an audio recording "without the prior consent and knowledge of the competent bodies".
The case also attracted the attention of legal experts, among them lawyer Rodoljub Šabić, who assessed that the pre-dismissal warning was a drastic example of an attempt to intimidate a whistleblower and that it sends the message that those who point to alleged unlawful acts could suffer professional consequences.
In the meantime, Radovanović also received a ruling on suspension, that is, temporary removal from work for a period of up to three months, and said she expected to be dismissed.
"The main thing I am blamed for is that I reported unlawful acts, that is, that I reported that the previous dean, Professor Tatjana Simić, had been removed unlawfully," Radovanović said, pointing out that, according to the reasoning of the ruling, she is also charged with having reported the irregularities to the competent institutions without the consent of the management, which she considers to have been unlawfully appointed.
"I am also blamed for not asking the unlawfully appointed management whether they would allow me to report that unlawfulness to the education inspectorate," she stressed, announcing that she would launch court proceedings against the dismissal ruling and that she believed she would succeed in that dispute.
"I truly believe that our judiciary is still independent and I am convinced that I will succeed in the court case," Radovanović said.
On 10 March, Professor Nataša Milić resigned as acting dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Belgrade.
At universities, the distribution of 20 hours a week for research or artistic work and 20 hours for teaching has thus been restored, while at academies and colleges of applied studies the distribution of 10 hours for professional or artistic work and 30 hours for teaching is reinstated.
The Government stated that the 2025 amendments had been adopted as a temporary measure "to enable teaching to be made up during the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 school years, when, due to the interruption of teaching, it was necessary to increase the number of teaching hours".
"As the circumstances that necessitated such a solution have ceased, the Government has restored the previous distribution of working time, also taking into account the demands of representatives of the academic community that the said amendments be repealed," the statement says.
The Government of Serbia adopted the Decree Amending the Decree on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget, which changes the way the salaries of teachers and associates at higher education institutions are calculated. It set out that the time required for teaching and for the research/artistic work of teachers and associates, 20 hours a week each within a 40-hour working week, changes to a ratio of five hours for research/artistic work and 35 hours for teaching.
According to the interpretation of university professors, the Decree provided that the research work of teachers and associates would account for 12.5 per cent in the calculation of pay, while teaching would be valued at 87.5 per cent. In practice, this meant that in a period when faculties are not holding classes, as was the case during the blockades, associates would receive only 12.5 per cent of their salary, given that only research work is taken into account.
The Conference of Universities of Serbia (KONUS), made up of nine state and nine private universities, condemned in the strongest terms this "ill-considered and unlawful action by the Government of Serbia, which further damages the state's relationship with higher education institutions and deepens general distrust in the authority of the competent bodies", while deans, professors, assistants and other staff of the University of Belgrade submitted to the Constitutional Court an initiative for a review of the constitutionality and legality of this decree.
This decree was the culmination of the authorities' efforts to try to extinguish the student protests, which, soon after they began in late November and early December 2024, grew into months-long civic protests against the rule of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Aleksandar Vučić.
Blockades
On 22 November 2024, students of the Faculty of Dramatic Arts (FDU) in Belgrade joined the "Stop, Serbia" ("Zastani Srbijo") action, during which a 15-minute silence was held in tribute to those killed in the collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy on 1 November. They gathered in front of the faculty on Bulevar umetnosti, where they were attacked by an organised group of people, among them Milija Koldžić, a member of the New Belgrade City Council from the SNS. On the afternoon of Monday 25 November, FDU students decided to go into blockade, and they informed the public the following day. FDU students demanded that the police file complaints with the prosecutor's office against the five people who had attacked the students, whose names had been published by the media, that the other attackers be identified and prosecuted, and that Koldžić be removed from his post.They condemned the violence against citizens seeking accountability for the canopy collapse in Novi Sad, the arrests of activists and police torture. "The violence against the students is not an isolated case, so we call on other students to launch blockades of their faculties as well," the sviublokade.fdu Instagram account said, with a clear call: "Everyone into blockades" ("Svi u blokade").
Students of numerous Belgrade faculties soon joined the blockades, among the first the Faculty of Philology, the Faculty of Philosophy, the Faculty of Science and Mathematics, the Faculty of Architecture, the School of Electrical Engineering, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, the Faculty of Agriculture… The blockade of the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade followed on 2 December. This was the start of the largest and longest student blockades and protests in history, joined by faculties and colleges across the country, as well as by secondary schools. The student protests soon grew into civic protests, blockades and rallies that brought together tens of thousands of citizens, and the one on 15 March 2025 several hundred thousand. The students' demands began with the publication of the complete documentation on the reconstruction of the Novi Sad railway station, the dropping of charges against those arrested and detained at protests, the filing of criminal complaints against those who attacked students and professors, and an increase in the higher education budget, and ended with a demand for early elections to be called.
Pressure on universities and professors
Most of the teaching and academic councils and teaching, artistic and academic councils of higher education institutions officially supported the students' demands, and under the Law on Higher Education none of them has a legal mechanism to vote for a physical blockade of a building or institution. The blockades were decisions of the student plenums. The faculty councils officially supported all the students' initial demands, condemned every kind of violence and pressure against students, professors, associates and non-teaching staff, and refused to apply repressive measures and remove students from the buildings.At a plenum held at the Rectorate of the University of Belgrade on 10 December 2024, Rector Vladan Đokić read out a statement from the Extended Rector's Board, which strongly supported the students in fulfilling the demands they had put forward as self-aware and academic citizens, and called for urgent action by the competent authorities to meet their demands. "The University stands in defence of students and colleagues who face unacceptable insults in the media, physical attacks and threats, as well as impermissible rhetoric directed at the academic community," Đokić said. The statement also said that faculty managements would not sanction students who, by protesting, are safeguarding the integrity of the academic community, especially the critical thinking and action of students as a vital part of our society.
The blockades continued. Large rallies followed, along with calls for a general strike, protest marches and gatherings in major cities. The largest rally up to that point was the 24-hour blockade of Autokomanda, held on 27 January 2025, from which the message was sent that the student demands had not been met and that the blockades would continue.
Invoking Article 111 of the Constitution of Serbia, the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, on 3 February invited the Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade to begin, on Wednesday 5 February, at a time convenient for them, a dialogue in which a solution would be found to the blockade of teaching at higher education institutions.
"Respecting the fact that the Extended Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade supported the current student protests in its statement of 10 December 2024, I am sure you are aware that the current situation is harmful in the long run not only to the teaching process at higher education institutions and to the students themselves, but also to the development of education, science and society as a whole," Vučić said.
He added that if students and professors of higher education institutions take the position that some of the demands have not been met, or that the demands have not been met in full, it is necessary to open a dialogue about it.
"I am convinced that only through dialogue can we jointly establish whether, and to what extent, the students' demands have been met, and specify all the activities that need to be undertaken for those demands to be met in the expected way," Vučić stated.
The Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade decided not to accept the invitation, stating that a series of inconsistencies in the public statements of representatives of state bodies gave no assurance that a dialogue leading to the fulfilment of the student demands was possible, nor that it would be effective if organised between two sides that have no mandate to discuss the demands and to whom the demands were not even addressed.
"The invitation to dialogue comes at a moment when all moral and legal norms have been overstepped, in an atmosphere of general distrust. As representatives of the University and academic citizens, we are further discouraged from believing that the proposed dialogue is possible by the continuous attacks against the academic community in the media space, and the even more brutal, impermissible physical attacks in public space," the statement said, stressing that the University of Belgrade once again insists that the competent institutions meet the student demands.
"We thank you for the invitation and assure the President and the public that as long as we work in accordance with the duties entrusted to us and within the limits of our powers and competences, we are working for the good of the university community, students and society as a whole. In that spirit, we remain open to talks, with full academic and personal responsibility," the statement stressed.
Before that, students of the Faculty of Law of the University of Belgrade had spoken out in a statement calling on the Rector's Board of the University of Belgrade to reject the invitation to dialogue, in which they said that the President of Serbia is an institution that "has a limited number of mostly ceremonial powers".
"Regarding the invocation of Article 111 of the Constitution, we believe that since the start of the student blockades the institution in question has been working on everything except achieving state unity, and we see no sign that anything will change in that regard. Besides, the demands were put forward by the students, not by the University management, so it is up to us to say whether they have been met," the students said.
The caretaker government's decree before the Constitutional Court
In an attempt to stifle the student protests and blockades, the authorities decided to adopt a decree cutting salaries and to send inspections to faculties to establish "the lawfulness of conduct in the work of higher education institutions". The Ministry of Education stated that by carrying out these inspections it would strive to ensure full respect for the Constitution and the law and to enable all actors in higher education, above all students, to exercise their rights.The decree that effectively cut salaries at universities, adopted on 24 March, was passed by the caretaker Government of Serbia. Namely, on 28 January, Prime Minister Miloš Vučević had resigned over the beating of students in Novi Sad. The evening before, four young men burst out of the SNS headquarters in the city and attacked five students, one of whom was lightly injured, while a female student's jaw was broken.
On 26 March, 450 deans, professors, assistants and other staff of the University of Belgrade submitted to the Constitutional Court an initiative for a review of the constitutionality and legality of the Decree Amending the Decree on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget, together with a proposal for an interim measure, assessing that the decree was not in line with the Law on the Government, the Law on Higher Education and the Constitution of Serbia.
The deans and professors consider the Decree unconstitutional and unlawful, because a Government whose mandate has ended has no authority to adopt such a decree, which was adopted hastily and without an adequate expert and public debate.
By adopting such a decree, according to those who submitted the initiative for a review of its constitutionality, the constitutional principle of university autonomy and academic freedom was violated, as were the Law on Higher Education and the right to work, that is, the right to fair remuneration for work. As the most important reason, they cited the consequences of applying the contested Decree for the academic community.
"Increasing the weekly teaching norm from 20 to 35 hours represents an increase of 75 per cent. Time for research/artistic work is thereby reduced to a minimum, which in the medium and long term would set back the research/artistic productivity of the university, and with it the quality of teaching (which should rest on contemporary scientific knowledge/artistic achievements)," the explanatory statement says.
The Conference of Universities of Serbia assessed that the decree further damages the state's relationship with higher education institutions and deepens general distrust in the authority of the competent bodies.
"The unity of teaching and research, professional and artistic-research activity is one of the fundamental principles on which higher education rests, and their proportional relationship is the most important precondition for ensuring the quality of teaching staff and building the reputation of every higher education institution. We particularly note that the disproportion introduced directly threatens the positioning of our universities on international rankings, given that one of the key ranking parameters is precisely the quality of research work," the statement said.
They asked the relevant state bodies to consider all the consequences of adopting such an act, and the Government of Serbia to urgently repeal the unlawful Decree, which could have devastating consequences for the quality of higher education and the country's scientific and technological development.
New minister accused of sexual harassment
After Prime Minister Vučević's resignation, the new Government of Serbia, headed by Đuro Macut, was elected at a session of the National Assembly on 16 April. Dejan Vuk Stanković, an associate professor at the Teacher Education Faculty of the University of Belgrade, better known to the public as a political analyst and a frequent guest and interviewee of pro-government media, was appointed Minister of Education. Stanković was a fierce opponent of the faculty blockades.Within three days, a petition against his appointment was signed by more than 18,000 people and over 45 civil society organisations, on account of allegations of sexual harassment. From 14 April, dozens of anonymous testimonies from female students were published on the Instagram page of the OsnaŽene association, including allegations of sexual harassment, inappropriate comments and suggestions of a "deal" over grades.
"More than 30 such and similar testimonies, relating mostly to 2021 but also to earlier years, arrived in just three days after we opened the anonymous questionnaire," Nikolina Tomašević of the OsnaŽene association told Radio Free Europe.
The former students did not want to speak publicly to this outlet. One of them, in a video message on the OsnaŽene Instagram page, said that they "always tried not to be alone with Stanković in his office".
"Professor Dejan Vuk Stanković is a man who really liked to stress how much it depended on him whether we would pass exams, graduate and so on. So it doesn't depend on us, it doesn't depend on how much we study and what we do, but solely on him and his goodwill," she said.
After these testimonies were published, Stanković filed a criminal complaint against unknown persons, whom he accused of "endangering safety", "stalking" and "causing panic and disorder".
"Given that the unidentified persons used social networks to publish false information, the case will be forwarded to the Special Department for High-Tech Crime for further action," the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office said on 16 April. The statement also said that, according to the police report, no complaints of sexual harassment had been filed against Stanković.
Rejecting the allegations, Stanković also stated on 15 April that "there is not a single complaint against him, whether at the faculty, or from the police or the Prosecutor's Office".
Slađana Jaćimović, Vice-Dean for Teaching at the Teacher Education Faculty, told Radio Free Europe that they had not received a single complaint, "either signed or anonymous", from female students regarding sexual harassment, and that in 2021 there had been such allegations "at the level of discussions on social networks" against both Stanković and other professors at various faculties.
"We talked to him at the time. His attention was drawn to reflecting on his behaviour, so as not to provoke further discontent with some verbal gesture or comment of his, because the whole context was worrying. It was a kind of media witch-hunt across the entire university," Jaćimović said.
When students of the Teacher Education Faculty voted for a blockade and a suspension of classes in early December 2024, Stanković was the only one to declare himself against the blockade, even though the dean's board supported the students.
In statements before his election as minister, Stanković said that "the methodology of the political struggle of the rebel students and professors resembles treating alcoholism with daily drinking" and that "the whole thing around the demands and the student blockades has gone in the direction of political demands that have little to do with improving the position of students and the university in the process of studying and teaching".
The Rebel University ("Pobunjeni univerzitet") initiative and the informal community Puls beogradskih osnovnih i srednjih škola (Pulse of Belgrade Primary and Secondary Schools) organised a protest in front of the Ministry of Education on 22 April over Stanković's election as Minister of Education.
"Stanković publicly supported repressive measures, denied the legitimacy of the student demands and advocated the use of force against those defending academic and moral values, which is why we consider his election as Minister of Education unacceptable," the initiative said.
Demand for elections
During the spring, student protests continued in Belgrade and across Serbia, where a large number of rallies were held. In April, the building of Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) was blockaded for two weeks, and the blockade was lifted after the parliamentary Committee on Culture and Information voted to launch a new procedure for nominating candidates for members of the Council of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Media (REM), having first annulled the old call, which had been a condition set by the students in blockade.The student protests acquired a clear political demand when, on 5 May, "Students in Blockade" called on their official profile for early parliamentary elections to be called, because their demands had not been met even after five months.
"We demand the immediate dissolution of the National Assembly and the calling of early parliamentary elections in accordance with Article 109 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia!" the students in blockade posted on social networks.
"We believe that democracy is the only right way to resolve a political crisis of this scale, so we call on the people to support the list to which the students in blockade of all higher education institutions in Serbia will give their trust, so that truth may prevail on the scales of justice," the students said.
Rebel University protest in front of the Government
On 9 June 2025, members of the academic community gathered in the informal group Rebel University called a protest in front of the Government of Serbia building under the name "Faculties at the Crossroads" ("Fakulteti na raskrsnici") over political control of education, the abolition of university autonomy and the ignoring of the academic community's demands.This protest was organised at a time when the end of the process of faculty blockades was in sight, a process which, in a somewhat altered form, continued through the summer. The blockade of the intersection lasted 17 days, and during that period the intersection of Kneza Miloša and Nemanjina streets was completely blocked, with the support of students, citizens' assemblies (zborovi) and informal groups bringing together staff of other universities in Serbia. During the blockade, the demand that the Government withdraw its decision to form a working group to amend the Law on Higher Education was partly met, while the remaining two concern the repeal of the decree that cut university professors' salaries and the adoption of state-funded enrolment quotas for faculties.
On the penultimate day of the blockade, after the fifth meeting between Prime Minister Đuro Macut and university representatives, the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, said it had been agreed at the meeting that enrolment quotas would remain the same as the previous year, that is, as many as the higher education institutions had requested. "The Government will hold its session by the end of this week and at that session it will decide on the quotas. After that, expert guidelines will be issued and from next week we will be able to announce calls for entrance exams for the next school year. Entrance exams will be organised in July," Đokić said.
Entrance exams were held at the faculties during July, followed by exam periods, and the academic year ended in October 2025. The new school year at the universities officially began in November, which also formally ended the physical blockade of all universities.
Dismissal at the Faculty of Medicine
The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Belgrade, Tatjana Simić, was removed from office at a session of the Faculty Council held on 2 September 2025. In addition to the dean, all vice-deans for teaching were also removed. Professor Nataša Milić was appointed acting dean of the faculty.On 11 September, the Rector of the University of Belgrade, Vladan Đokić, sent a letter to the Faculty of Medicine in which he stressed that the Council of this higher education institution had violated the Law on Higher Education in the recent removal of the former dean, Prof. Dr Tatjana Simić.
He pointed out that the reasoning of the decision to remove the dean shows unequivocally that the decision is not in line with the Law on Higher Education, the Statute of the University of Belgrade and the Statute of the Faculty of Medicine.
The Rector also stressed that there is no final decision establishing that the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine committed a serious breach of the Code of Professional Ethics, nor does the Council of the Faculty of Medicine have the right to establish the existence of such a breach itself and record the termination of the dean's term of office, or to appoint an acting dean.
Students in Blockade of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade spoke out, assessing that the dean's removal and the appointment of the acting dean were illegitimate, because the session of the Faculty Council had been riddled with irregularities and conducted in an utterly unacademic tone.
"Most professors left the session, refusing to take part in unlawful proceedings. The reason given for the dean's removal was an alleged 'serious breach of the Code of Professional Ethics of the University of Belgrade', even though the only competent body, the University of Belgrade's Committee on Professional Ethics, had not made a decision on it. In addition, the President of the Council was not present at the session, even though he alone, under the Statute, is authorised to propose an acting dean," said the students, who stated that they had spoken out 10 days after the event because they wanted to establish all the facts.
This conclusion by the Rector was preceded by a letter from the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine, Marija Radovanović, who attended the Council session in question and pointed to numerous unlawful acts in the dismissal of the former dean and the appointment of the new one.
Students in Blockade of the Faculty of Medicine in Belgrade spoke out on 24 January 2026 and announced that the Secretary of the Faculty of Medicine, Marija Radovanović, "after months of persecution by the current unlawfully imposed faculty management, was dismissed yesterday".
"From day one, Marija supported the student blockade of the Faculty of Medicine, and since September she had been pointing out to institutions the unlawful removal of Dean Tatjana Simić and the unlawful actions of the new acting management," the students said, stressing that, although she has whistleblower status, she had been subjected from day one to mobbing by acting dean Nataša Milić and the rest of the dean's board.
"Marija first received pre-dismissal warnings and was suspended, and now her employment has officially been terminated, unlawfully," said the students, who organised a protest on 7 February in support of the dismissed faculty secretary.
On 8 September 2025, Marija Radovanović submitted an official report to the Ministry of Education, the education inspectorate, the Rector of the University and the members of the faculty's Election Council, in which she warned of what she described as the unlawful removal of the then dean, Prof. Dr Tatjana Simić, and the selection of Nataša Milić as acting dean, explaining that part of the session had been recorded and that she had an audio recording confirming this.
After she sent the report, Marija Radovanović's official work email was first shut down, preventing her from further using the faculty's communication address. Soon afterwards she was handed a pre-dismissal warning, on the grounds that, as the competent bodies of the faculty claim, she had committed a serious breach of work obligations and of work discipline by sending an official letter and an audio recording "without the prior consent and knowledge of the competent bodies".
The case also attracted the attention of legal experts, among them lawyer Rodoljub Šabić, who assessed that the pre-dismissal warning was a drastic example of an attempt to intimidate a whistleblower and that it sends the message that those who point to alleged unlawful acts could suffer professional consequences.
In the meantime, Radovanović also received a ruling on suspension, that is, temporary removal from work for a period of up to three months, and said she expected to be dismissed.
"The main thing I am blamed for is that I reported unlawful acts, that is, that I reported that the previous dean, Professor Tatjana Simić, had been removed unlawfully," Radovanović said, pointing out that, according to the reasoning of the ruling, she is also charged with having reported the irregularities to the competent institutions without the consent of the management, which she considers to have been unlawfully appointed.
"I am also blamed for not asking the unlawfully appointed management whether they would allow me to report that unlawfulness to the education inspectorate," she stressed, announcing that she would launch court proceedings against the dismissal ruling and that she believed she would succeed in that dispute.
"I truly believe that our judiciary is still independent and I am convinced that I will succeed in the court case," Radovanović said.
On 10 March, Professor Nataša Milić resigned as acting dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Belgrade.
A financial return to the old state of affairs
On 30 July, the Government of Serbia repealed the amendments to the Decree on Criteria for Determining the Amount of Tuition Costs at Colleges and the Decree on Norms and Standards of Working Conditions of Universities and Faculties for Activities Financed from the Budget, returning the distribution of teaching staff's working time to the arrangements in force before the amendments were adopted.At universities, the distribution of 20 hours a week for research or artistic work and 20 hours for teaching has thus been restored, while at academies and colleges of applied studies the distribution of 10 hours for professional or artistic work and 30 hours for teaching is reinstated.
The Government stated that the 2025 amendments had been adopted as a temporary measure "to enable teaching to be made up during the 2024/2025 and 2025/2026 school years, when, due to the interruption of teaching, it was necessary to increase the number of teaching hours".
"As the circumstances that necessitated such a solution have ceased, the Government has restored the previous distribution of working time, also taking into account the demands of representatives of the academic community that the said amendments be repealed," the statement says.
