This year, the University of Sarajevo marks its 70th anniversary and 15th anniversary of introducing the Bologna Concept of Study. This significant anniversary of the oldest and largest higher education institution in Bosnia and Herzegovina is marked by a series of events and activities, including the organization of round tables, academic meetings and workshops.

Within these activities, the University of Sarajevo is also organizing a series of round tables entitled Higher Education, Social Needs and the Market (Labor), with the aim of opening serious discussions on the scope and modalities of the link between the higher education system and the labor market. This problem has been identified in various analyzes, with the aim of its solving, the University of Sarajevo takes significant steps through cooperation with about two hundred social community entities - the Canton Chamber of Commerce and the FBiH, the Canton Sarajevo Employment Service, the Sarajevo Canton Employers Association and numerous to other business organizations and associations.
The planned roundtable series would entail a broad and multidisciplinary discussion of strategic, long-term paths of social development, but also to formulate as concrete as possible those areas that would be its bearers. In this way, we could also reach short- and medium-term projects in Bosnia and Herzegovina, whereby the University of Sarajevo could take on the fundamental function for which it was founded - to pave paths of the country's social development. Only in this way can we properly approach the question of the relationship between the education system (especially higher education) and what we commonly call the “labor market.”

This relationship also requires a very careful analysis that would at least get us close to answering the basic questions: what, in our conditions, is the labor market at all, what determines it and whether we can plan it in the long run; what types of competences, knowledge and skills should be specifically insisted on without undermining the spirit of university action beyond the short-term, especially those daily political demands; what is the general knowledge today in particular fields if we want to adapt it to the maximum development goals; how to get into the situation again for the University to be the place of creation of development guidelines and not the mere executor of unsystematically created priorities that most often come from the sphere of politics.

The first in a series of roundtables, entitled Humanities and the Myth of Needlessness, will be held at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Room 82 on 4 November 2019 at 12:00.

This roundtable is an opportunity to consider at least some key questions about the position of the Humanities, the possible avenues for their further development, their transformation in the face of accelerated change in the world, and the construction of bridges to other disciplines.

The roundtable participants are Prof. Dr. Vahidin Preljević, Prof. Dr. Vedad Smailagić, Prof. Dr. Alena Ćatović and Matija Bošnjak, PhD student, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo.

P R O G R A M

• The myth of the Humanities needlessness. Uneducated people and educated cars - Prof. Dr. VEDAD SMAILAGIĆ, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Department of German Studies
• The problem of economic justification for language learning: Oriental philology - Prof. Dr. ALENA ĆATOVIĆ, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Department of Oriental Philology
• Humanities on the verge of a shift of generations: traditional values in light of unexpected challenges - MATIJA BOŠNJAK, MA, PhD candidate at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo
• The Meaning of Philology: Understanding Facts in the Post-Factual Age - Prof. Dr. VAHIDIN PRELJEVIĆ, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo, Department of German Studies