Differences between Serbia and Belgium

The capital of European Union Brussels is mentioned too often in Serbian media because my country wants to become a member of EU too hard. We always compare ourselves with West European countries considering them to be our ideals, teachers, leaders. But unfortunately people rarely know much about my country Serbia. Belgians usually go to have a holiday in their neighbor countries (Germany, France, Netherlands), also sometimes to Slovenia and Croatia, which are ex Yugoslavia countries just like Serbia and very close to Serbia by language, mentality, temper...

Serbia is an Eastern European country, always in between East and West civilizations. After civil war in 1990-s and NATO bombing in 1999. Serbia is nowadays finally a safe country to visit. The capital Belgrade is 2 million people city on the confluence of the rivers Sava and Danube. There are opinions and marketing that Belgrade is one of the world`s top destinations by night life and parting. They say it is a city of kind people who want to help everyone, easily start communication and friendship with foreigners, like to drink traditional brandy "rakija" and in general don`t like to work as much as West Europeans.

Most of young people leave their smaller cities and villages toward bigger opportunities in the capital. So, it is not surprising that the rest of the country counts only 4-5 million other people. Majority of the population is Orthodox and write Serbian language using Cyrillic alphabet (ћирилично писмо). The weather is very hot during the summer (up to 35 and more degrees) and very cold during the winter with snow every year. 

The educational system is divided into 8 years of elementary school, 4 years of high school and later on the university with Bologna rules. Children start going to school at the age of 7 and spend first 4 years of obligatory education with one teacher. That is my job, when I get one, teaching in the first stage of education and I have to finish Master studies to be able to do it. Later on, pupils have different teachers for every subject. 

Kids can start going to kindergarten already as babies but obligatory is only one year of preschool education, when they are 6. Pupils can spend hole day in school (8-18 h) if their parents want it. There are classes half a day after which they can go home or stay in an after school club where another teacher helps them with homework and provides diverse leisure time. In Belgium, it is more common than in Serbia that kids go to kindergarten already at the age of 2,5 and spend all day having different classes. Obligatory school starts at the age of 6. They change teachers every year and go to elementary school for 6 years, after which is another 6 years period of high school education. After that is university period and teachers like me need only Bachelor degree to be able to get a job in school. 

Unfortunately, there are less kids than teachers in Serbia and unemployment of teachers is frustrating. The opposite, Belgium needs more teachers and I saw a lot of families have 3 or more kids. There is one disturbing question: how hard is it to work in international environment where some of your pupils don`t even speak Dutch or their parents don`t put enough effort to really integrate into Belgian culture. Serbian society doesn`t have numerous immigrants like Belgian, especially colored people are very rare. 

I will mention some of other differences between my country and Belgium: we learn in school the utility of selecting and recycling garbage but there are hardly anywhere containers for real usage of that knowledge. If you don`t select the garbage well in Belgium, you will pay the penalty. I saw people use solar and wind energy in Belgium, there are those special panels on the roofs of many houses and many big white windmills in passing. Bicycle riders are very respected in the traffic, there are paths for bicycles everywhere, public ones for renting, huge parking places only for bicycles, you can take your bike to the train, bus, metro. Cycling is the most popular sport, all generations do it for recreation. My colleagues even get bonus salary if they use a bicycle as a way of transportation to work. In my country all of this is just a fantasy but young fans of cycling are fighting for their rights bearing in minds what they have seen in Belgium and Netherlands.