Reception for Newly Employed Teachers and Teaching Assistants at the University of Banja Luka

A reception for newly employed teaching assistants, senior teaching assistants and assistant professors engaged at the University of Banja Luka as of the academic year 2024-2025 was organized on 4 October 2024.

Rector of the University of Banja Luka Prof. Radoslav Gajanain, PhD, welcomed them to the academic community and emphasized that our university is starting the new academic year with thirty-two new colleagues, most of whom will be engaged based on a permanent employment contract, while a part of them will have an outside/supplementary contract.

"We want our new teachers and teaching assistants to be successful members of the academic community. Certainly, the most important thing is that the goal and intention of our university is for part of the academic community to be the best", the rector said."

"The goal of the University is to merge theory and practicals, that is, to have more and more
teaching assistants engaged from appropriate companies, as is the case with the Faculty of Medicine, where the majority of teaching assistants and professors have a permanent employment contract with the University Clinical Centre of the Republic of Srpska or with Banja Luka Health Care Centre, and they teach at the University", the rector explained and emphasized
that other faculties should follow this example.

Minister for Scientific and Technological Development and Higher Education Asst. Prof. Željko Budimir, PhD, also addressed the newly employed.

He thanked the teachers and teaching assistants who are becoming part of the academic community, and wished them luck in continuing to work at the University and finding a reliable partner with whom they will continue to develop as scientists and people.

"The model applied by the University of Banja Luka, especially at the natural science and technical faculties, is the only one possible to retain high-quality staff with practical experience and results achieved," the minister said.

Since this academic year, Nikola Granolić has been employed at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering as teaching assistant at the Department of Computer Science and Informatics.

"I am grateful that the University gave me the opportunity to start an academic career in my city and my Republic, and I plan to continue my journey here and to pass on knowledge to new generations, but also to continue learning from my older colleagues," Granolić said.

"It is a great honour for me to start my career at the University from which I graduated and where I was the student of the generation. This will be a big step in my further scientific work and research and further training," Milica Hrvač said, who started her career this academic year as the teaching assistant at the Faculty of Security Sciences of the University of Banja Luka.

The reception at the Rectorate was also attended by the Vice-Rector for Material and Human Resources Prof. Dalibor Kesić, PhD.

Photo: D. Desnica