Family Care and Demography Minister Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski emphasizes in her biography that she obtained a degree in political science from the Faculty of Political Sciences (FPN). However, Center for Investigative Journalism of Serbia (CINS) reveals that she never graduated from there.

For the first time since she entered politics, Milica Djurdjevic Stamenkovski did not appear as an opposition MP in Serbia’s National Assembly at the beginning of May. In the parliamentary elections held in December 2023, her party Oathkeepers did not pass the election threshold, despite being in coalition with the Dveri movement. Nevertheless, Djurdjevic Stamenkovski managed to become an MP, this time as a candidate for Minister of Family Care and Demography.

Her biography, which was sent to MPs along with those of other proposed ministers, states that after graduating from the First Belgrade Gymnasium, she enrolled at the Faculty of Political Sciences, where she obtained a degree in political science.

For years, this information has also been listed on her personal website, and was also included on the Ministry’s website after she was appointed minister.

However, despite enrolling at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade after high school, Djurdjevic Stamenkovski never completed her studies, CINS reveals.

She lost her student status at the Faculty back in 2020.

Despite this, her name continued to appear on election lists with the title of “political scientist” in the following years.

Former Minister of Education Srdjan Verbic told CINS that no one in the Government checks biographies or requires proof of educational background when one becomes minister.

“I did provide it, as I thought it was necessary, but no one asked me for it.”

However, Zoran Stojiljkovic, a sociologist and retired Faculty of Political Sciences professor, believes that members of the executive branch should be obliged to provide proof of their educational qualifications upon taking office.

“In normal societies, they [ministers] must be accountable to the public, and therefore, citizens should be provided with information about their educational background, among other things,” CINS quoted Stojiljkovic as saying.

In her statement to CINS, Minister Djurdjevic Stamenkovski says that she obtained her degree this year – from the Russian Institute of Diaspora and Integration. She did not provide evidence of this because, as she says, she submitted documentation for enrollment in a master’s program at the Russian State Social University.

She declined to answer CINS’s other questions, including why she chose this Institute, how she enrolled there, and which study program she completed, instead telling us to put these questions to the Institute itself.

Read the full story on the CINS website.