MEETING HELD ON STUDENTS’ SAFETY

On the occasion of the beginning of the 2015/16 school year, a meeting was held on students’ safety, attended by the Head of the City Administration for Education Ms. Lidija Tomaš. At the meeting, the following topics were presented: ‘The Analysis of juvenile delinquent behavior on the territory of the South Bačka District in 2014/15’, as well as ‘Measure plan for realization of students’ and schools’ safety for the 2015/16 school year’.
- The City of Novi Sad, the Coordinating body in charge for fight against primary and secondary school violence on the City Territory and the Novi Sad Police Administration as a partner institution, conduct a range of measures for students’ safety improvement in primary and secondary schools.  In accordance with that, at today’s meeting, numerous data were exhibited for the past six months, which will be discussed at the next session of the Coordinating Body. At that session, the six-month report will be adopted, and also new conclusions will be reached on measures to be taken in the forthcoming period. The plan to be realized till the end of the year is introduction of students’ and employees’ identification cards in ten primary and ten secondary schools. By introducing this measure, a restricted entrance will be imposed to the unauthorized non-teaching personnel. For this purpose, both primary- and secondary-school groups were allocated five million RSD each, while the remainder of schools will receive their cards till the end of 2016. In addition to this, a pilot-project will award the ‘Mileva Mariċ-Ajnštajn’ Technical School a multifunction metal detector door, which will demonstrate how much the school safety will be increased. – said Ms. Tomaš, and added that this meeting’s conclusions will also significantly contribute the improvement of the level of safety.
- In schools of the South Bačka District or at their immediate vicinity, in the 2014/15 school year, we have recorded 243 criminal acts, i.e. crimes, which represents a 5% decrease compared to the previous year. A third of all these acts were perpetrated in Novi Sad, as well as 36 % of all disturbances of public peace and order recorded for the previous school year. Most common crime among these is the one against property, and among them thefts and destruction of another’s property. – said officer Dejan Drobnjak of the Police Department.
Discovery of more significant amount of crimes within the drug addiction domain is primarily due to police actions and operations such as ‘Školarac’ (Schoolboy). This operation has been realized at every school in Novi Sad since June 2014, with the aim of suppressing all forms of criminality. During this operation, the police acted against 6000 individuals, found and seized narcotics from 90 individuals, seized five pieces of fire arms and 52 pieces of cold weapons, and located 27 individuals for whom wanted circulars had been issued.
School policemen are also charged for the security of students at schools, and their activities cover 32 educational institutions. There has been increased presence of policemen in school zones, and reports and information on crime at schools or their vicinity have been given priority by the police.
Within the prevention-educational project of the MOI ‘Safe childhood – development of youth safety culture’, police officials and officers have given lectures on 503 occasions at primary schools during 2014/15: ‘Within the vicious circle of drug and alcohol’, ‘Let’s meet the police’, ‘Let’s stop the peer violence among students’. These lectures were attended by 10777 fifth graders. 

In Nоvi Sаd, September 03rd 2015