Work conditions of the teaching staff of Belgrade University: teacher performance evaluation

Written by Ana Janković and Isidora Jarić, this article appeared on the journal Filozofija i društvo in 2010.
 
The actual reform process of the system of higher education in Serbia imposes the need for standardization on the work of the employees in higher education as well as of the manner of evaluation of their work and the teaching process itself. The Bologna reform of the higher education in Serbia, and in the broader European region, introduces certain innovations in the teacher work evaluation process – the obligation to carry out self-evaluation and student evaluation.
 
The first reactions to the Bologna reform in public discourse reveal numerous ambiguities in the interpretation of this kind of evaluation of the work of the higher education employees. Empirical analysis of the interviews with university teachers of five faculties of the Belgrade University uncovers some of the symbolic places of resistance, but also the symbolical places of identification and acceptance of the evaluation process. Careful analyses of the way the interviewed teachers construe the narratives of the idea of having their own teaching practices evaluated and the arguments they bring forward in favor of, or against, the implementation of evaluation, discover numerous shortcomings of the present-day evaluation techniques, but also possibilities for their improvement and adaptation to actual needs of the teaching process in the institutions of higher education.