Vučić says Jovine school principal is difficult, but blames parents instead

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has blamed the parents of students at Novi Sad’s Jovan Jovanović Zmaj Grammar School for a protest against the school principal, Radivoj P. Stojković.

The protest followed the dismissal of several teachers. Vučić accused the students of jumping around the principal “like madmen” while he sat silently. He said Stojković was a difficult man who could be hard to speak with and sometimes made mistakes, but insisted that he was not the central problem.

“The problem here is you, dear parents, you who laugh at older people and teach children to engage in politics at 15 and not respect their elders,” Vučić told reporters during a visit to Karavukovo near Odžaci. He said students had mocked the principal after he told them they should be well-mannered and loyal citizens.

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The problem here is you, dear parents, you who laugh at older people and teach children to engage in politics at 15 and not respect their elders.

Vučić also addressed claims that students in several parts of Serbia had destroyed school packages distributed free of charge by the Expo company. He said the sight of children destroying new notebooks and pens, then boasting about it, had saddened him. He stressed that Expo had no connection with political parties or affiliations.

“I was sad because I understand how great a problem we parents have, how unable we are to control ourselves and our passions, and how little it bothers us that we have not raised our children to be decent people,” he said. He added that he would not see any point in throwing away a kilogram of tomatoes that political opponents might give him, saying he could not sleep after destroying something new that had been given to him.

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I was sad because I understand how great a problem we parents have, how unable we are to control ourselves and our passions, and how little it bothers us that we have not raised our children to be decent people.