![Kosovo Parents Struggle for Textbooks as New School Year Begins 2 kosovo parents struggle for textbooks as new school year begins](https://botasot.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/kosovo-parents-struggle-for-textbooks-as-new-school-year-begins.jpg)
As the new school year starts on Monday, the teachersâ union is criticising the government for again not supplying schools with textbooks directly, forcing parents to buy them from stores using money allocated online.
Kosovo parents have been touring one bookstore after another recently â just as they did last year â to get textbooks for their children ahead of the new school year, which starts on Monday.
Two weeks ago, the government said it had allocated 13.8 million euros to be distributed to parentsâ accounts for school books after they apply individually through an online platform.
Kosovoâs teachersâ union says the government was wrong to go for this option. Until 2022, the government supplied pupils with textbooks directly in schools. Last year, the government decided not to tie any deals with publishing houses, claiming that it would cost the budget more.
âWe expected the Ministry of Education to not repeat last yearâs mistake and to reach an agreement with publishing houses in order to distribute textbooks to schools, but that did not happen,â Rrahman Jasharaj, Head of the Education, Science and Culture Unions, told BIRN.
âLetâs wait till Monday and see how it goes but I am afraid that situations like last year will be repeated, when pupils were not properly supplied with textbooks,â he added.
Bedri Dragusha, head of Kosovoâs Parentsâ Council, told BIRN that his organisation has not received any complaints so far from parents, although he admitted that the current way of purchasing books is more complicated.
âMost parents wanted the ministry to supply textbooks to schools in order to avoid sending money to bank accounts,â Dragusha said.
âBut we have not received any specific complaints so far and the process [of buying textbooks] is going smoothly,â he added.
By August 27, the ministry announced it had received more than 194,000 applications from parents and had reimbursed more than 171,000 of them.
âNo pupil will remain without textbooks and any complaint will be addressed as a priority and necessary support will be given in order to make it possible for them to get a reimbursement,â Arberie Nagavci, Minister of Education, said on August 20.
Confrontations between teachersâ unions and the Kosovo government have often affected the start of the new school year, with teachers staging strikes to publicise their demands for better working conditions and salaries.
Dragusha said that the Parentsâ Council has urged unions not to strike. âWe have asked the Teachersâ Union not to strike. The school year should start regularly and the union should use other means to address their demands. Pupils and parents should not be damaged,â he said.
Rrahman Jasharaj, from the Teachersâ Union, said on Friday that the school year will start as usual this year, but did not exclude action at a later stage.
âThe school year will start on Monday. We have not planned any action. We will wait until the end of September and then the unionâs steering committee will convene to decide on any next step,â Jasharaj said.
02 September 2024 – 10:27