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Cyrillic script. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Ivan.

Pro-Serbian opposition party Prava Crna Gora (The Real Montenegro) has sent an open letter to the Education Ministry demanding the ‘protection’ of the Cyrillic script and alleging discrimination in the public education system.

Prava Crna Gora said that that students in primary and secondary schools will receive their diplomas printed only in the Latin alphabet. Diplomas in the Cyrillic script can only be obtained with the approval of the school administration, it claimed.

“Our position is, and it isn’t hard to argue, that scripts in Montenegro are not equal… those who want Cyrillic have to beg for it,” party leader Marco Milacic told BIRN.

He urged all organisations and political parties involved in the protection of Cyrillic to take more serious action on the issue, rather than just reacting each school year after pupils’ diplomas are issued and they finish their studies in June.

In the letter to the Education Ministry, Milacic reminded all parents that their children have the constitutional right to get diplomas issued in Cyrillic.

Serbian opposition parties, NGOs and academics have alleged that there is discrimination against the Serbian language and the Cyrillic script in schools since 2011.

The Montenegrin language has been the official one in the country’s education system since 2011, although the majority of people use Serbian.

At the last census in 2011, 36 per cent said that they spoke the Montenegrin language and 44 per cent said they spoke Serbian.

The dispute erupted again last June, when for the first time since World War II, students in primary and secondary schools received their ‘Luca’ diplomas – named after a poem by the 19th century Montenegrin ruler and poet Njegos – printed in the Latin alphabet rather than Cyrillic.

After similar discrimination claims by the Serbian organisation in December, Education Minister Damir Sehovic responded that according to the regulations, schools are obliged to issue Cyrillic diplomas, but at the request of pupils’ parents.

Sehovic said that anyone who faces any problems with the issue should report it to the ministry.

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