Today, the president of the “Whistleblower” association, Vesna Balenović, stated that the Education Inspection is the weakest link of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, and at a press conference in Karlovac, while supporting the whistleblower – an informatics professor from the “Turanj” Elementary School, she called on Minister Primorac to reconsider the work of the director of that inspection, Marijan Kajmak.
The reason for the press conference is the case at the “Turanj” Elementary School in Karlovac, where informatics professor Predrag Novković Mihalić resigned because he could not withstand the pressure from two teachers and a representative of a publishing house to obligate students to switch to new textbooks for the offered bribe. They later threatened him, he claims, and he reported everything to the authorized bodies. In this case, as in previous ones that the “Whistleblower” Association dealt with, the inspection did not react properly, Balenović assessed and called on Minister Dragan Primorac to reconsider the work of the director of the Education Inspection, Kajmak.
As Balenović stated, the informatics professor Novković Mihalić was struck by the heavy fate of a “whistleblower.” Namely, everything indicates that he faces a years-long struggle to prove the truth, as more than a month has passed since he reported the case to the school principal Ivica Jengić, the police, and the Education Inspection of Karlovac County, and nothing has happened, prompting him to turn to the media and the “Whistleblower” Association. The county education inspector Vesna Štraus told him, as Professor Novković Mihalić stated, that she received a written notice from her superiors in Zagreb that she does not have to conduct supervision at the “Turanj” Elementary School because the police have taken over the case. However, as he said, the police did not call him for any conversation even a month after the report.
