OSCE Mission, Serb Parliament announce winners of high school essay contest

BELGRADE, 24 June 2005 - Three high school students today received their prizes in the Serbian Parliament for their entries in the "If I were the Prime Minister of Serbia..." essay competition.

More than 1,000 students from 100 high schools across Serbia took part in the contest, organized jointly by the Serbian Education Ministry and the OSCE Mission.

The prizes were presented by the Speaker of the Serbian National Assembly, Predrag Markovic, the Minister of Education and Sport, Slobodan Vuksanovic and the Head of the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro, Ambassador Maurizio Massari.

"Fostering political awareness among young people is important for the development of democratic institutions," said Ambassador Massari. "This contest encouraged young people in Serbia to think about their country's political, social, cultural and economic present and future."

The winning essays by Nikola Jovanovic (Nis), Ljubisa Bojanic (Kraljevo) and Milica Stojadinovic (Kragujevac) will be published in the national daily Danas and the students will visit the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna. In addition, their school libraries will receive generous contributions.

Third and final year students from all high schools in Serbia were invited to submit an essay with their original thoughts and ideas on issues related to political leadership and democracy.

This is the second time that this essay competition was organized jointly by the OSCE Mission to Serbia and Montenegro and the Serbian Ministry of Education and Sport with the support o the National Assembly.

The jury included Sonja Licht from the Fund for Political Excellence, Vojin Dimitrijevic, Director of the Belgrade Centre for Human Rights, Donka Banovic, President of the Serbian Parliamentary Committee for Education, and Grujica Spasovic, Editor-in-Chief of Danas, as well as Predrag Markovic and Maurizio Massari.