Serbia - Education and Science

Education and Science

Education in Serbia is regulated by the Ministry of Science and Education. Education starts in either pre-schools or elementary schools. Children enroll in elementary schools at the age of seven, and remain there for eight years. After compulsory education students have the opportunity to either attend a high school for another four years, specialist school, for 2 to 4 years, or to enroll in vocational training, for 2 to 3 years. Following the completion of high school or a specialist school, students have the opportunity to attend university.

The largest public universities in Serbia are:

• University of Belgrade
• University of Kragujevac
• University of Niš
• University of Novi Sad
• University of Pristina

The University of Belgrade is the oldest and currently the largest university in Serbia. Established in 1808, it has 31 faculties, and since its inception, has trained an estimated 330,000 graduates. Other universities with a significant number of faculty and alumni are those of Novi Sad (founded 1960), Kragujevac (founded 1976) and Niš (founded 1965).

The roots of the Serbian education system date back to the 11th and 12th centuries when the first Catholic colleges were founded in Titel and Bač. With the establishment of the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Serbian Kingdom in 1217, education was mostly conducted through the monasteries of Sopoćani, Studenica, and Patriarchate of Peć. The oldest college faculty within the current borders dates back to 1778; founded in the city of Sombor, then Habsburg Empire, it was known under the name Norma and was the oldest Slavic Teacher's college in Southern Europe.

Serbia has a rich tradition of contributing to the field of science and technology. Scientist, inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla patented numerous inventions and was an important contributor to the birth of commercial electricity in the United States. Other notable Serbian scientists and inventors were Mihajlo Pupin and Milutin Milanković.

• Nikola Tesla was famous for developing the AC motor, the bifilar coil, various devices that used rotating magnetic fields, the alternating current polyphase power distribution systems, the fundamental devices of systems of wireless communication (legal priority for the invention of radio), radio frequency oscillators, devices for voltage magnification by standing waves, robotics, logic gates for secure radio frequency communications, devices for x-rays, apparatus for ozone generation, devices for ionized gases, devices for high field emission, devices for charged particle beams, methods for providing extremely low level of resistance to the passage of electrical current, means for increasing the intensity of electrical oscillations, voltage multiplication circuitry, devices for high voltage discharges, devices for lightning protection and VTOL aircraft. He also invented the Tesla coil and the Tesla turbine . The tesla is the SI derived unit of magnetic flux density and was named after Tesla.
• Mihailo Petrović is known for having contributed significantly to differential equations and phenomenology, as well as inventing one of the first prototypes of an analog computer.
• Milutin Milanković is known for his theory of ice ages, suggesting a relationship between the Earth's long-term climate changes and periodic changes in its orbit, now known as Milankovitch cycles.
• Mihajlo Pupin discovered a means of means of greatly extending the range of long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils of wire (known as Pupin coils) at predetermined intervals along the transmitting wire (known as "pupinization").
• Miodrag Radulovacki is best known for postulating the Adenosine Sleep Theory in 1984.
• Josif Pančić discovered and identified the Serbian Spruce in 1875.
• Jovan Cvijić is considered the founder of geography in Serbia. In more than 30 years of intense scientific study, Cvijić published vast number of significant works, many of which have not lost value even today. He founded the Faculty of Philosophy's Geographical institute in 1923, the first geographic institute in Balkans.