No. 07-00-564/2017-02   Dated: 5 April 2018
 

OPINION

This Opinion was issued in a procedure following a complaint filed by association “L“ against the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, National Council for Higher Education, Institute for the Improvement of Education, Institute for Textbooks and Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation, due to the content of secondary school textbooks “Internal Diseases with Care 2“, “Health Care III“, “Psychology for the Second Grade of the Gymnasium“, “Psychology“ for the third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry”, which discriminates against members of the LGBT population based on sexual orientation. The Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation and the National Council for Higher Education stated that they are not responsible for the content of secondary school textbooks. In the statement of the PC Institute for Textbooks, which is the publisher of this textbook, it is stated that this company cannot be passively legitimised in this procedure because the content of textbooks is exclusively the responsibility of the author of the textbook which guarantees that the textbook is in accordance with scientific and professional standards. The Institute for the Improvement of Education stated that, based on the request of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, a working group of the Institute was formed with a task to review the content of the approved secondary school textbooks “Internal Diseases with Care 2”, “Health Care III” , “Psychology for the Secondary Grade of the Gymnasium”, “Psychology” for the third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry”, and that after textbook examination, an opinion was provided that it is necessary to make changes to the textbooks referred to in the complaints. In addition, it was stated that the Institute is competent only to give a professional opinion about the quality of textbooks and cannot be considered responsible for the further course of events or for the circumstance that this textbook is still in sale. The Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development stated that the working group of the Institute for the Improvement of Education examined the content of textbooks “Internal Care with Care 2”, “Health Care III”, “Psychology for the Second Grade of the Gymnasium”, “Psychology” for third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry” and gave its expert opinion and a recommendation to change or supplement the text in order to eliminate discrimination and stop marketing the existing copies of the textbooks. It was pointed out that, as it was not acted according to the expert opinion and recommendation, the Ministry will remove the textbooks from the Rulebook on the plan for textbooks for the school year 2016/2017 to 2018/2019. During the procedure, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality analysed whether textbooks “Internal Diseases with Care 2”, “Health Care III”, “Psychology for the Second Grade of the Gymnasium“, “Psychology” for the third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry” have the discriminatory content, as well as relevant legal regulations related to the procedure for the approval and withdrawal of textbooks. Bearing in mind the relevant legal regulations which determine the competence of certain bodies and institutions, as well as the procedure for the approval, amendment and withdrawal of textbooks for secondary schools, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality is of an opinion that in the procedure following a complaint filed by “L.”, the National Council for Higher Education, Institute for the Improvement of Education, Institute for Textbooks and Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation did not violate provisions of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination. On the other hand, having in mind that the disputed content in these textbooks was discriminatory, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development was obliged to take measures prescribed by the Law on Textbooks and after receiving an expert opinion with the recommendation of the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation. Namely, this Institute gave an opinion that textbooks “Internal Diseases with Care 2”, “Health Care III”, “Psychology for the Second Grade of the Gymnasium”, “Psychology” for the third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry” contain deficiencies which should not be further used and recommended to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development to oblige the publisher to make changes and not place the existing copies of these textbooks on the market. During the procedure, the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development did not prove that it has taken measures in order to act in accordance with the recommendation of the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation and the textbooks with discriminatory content are still being used in teaching which is in contrast to anti-discrimination provisions. Therefore, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality is of an opinion that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, by failing to take measures to eliminate the discriminatory content from textbooks “Internal Diseases with Care 2”, “Health Care III”, “Psychology for the Second Grade of the Gymnasium”, “Psychology“ for the third and fourth grade of trade, catering and tourism and personal services schools, “Neuropsychiatry” and “Child Neuropsychiatry”, violated the provisions of Article 6 of the Law on the Prohibition of Discrimination. Therefore, the Commissioner for the Protection of Equality recommended to the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development to undertake measures within its competence prescribed by the Law on Textbooks and the Rulebook on the manner and procedure for providing expert assessment and expert opinion on the quality of the wording of textbooks, manuals and teaching materials, additional teaching tools, teaching aids, didactic tools and didactic play tools, in order to eliminate the discriminatory content and prevent the textbooks with such content from being further used in teaching.