The new Law on Primary Education, which should be adopted by the Parliament by the end of the year, will contain a provision prohibiting a student from changing schools, unless the parents change their place of residence, i.e. address. As one of the measures to prevent the segregation of Roma students, this was pointed out by Minister of Education Vesna Janevska, who was in Bitola today.
“The state does not carry out segregation, but the physical separation of separate ethnicities, in the case of the Roma and Macedonians, is a result of traditional living in Macedonia and this should be taken into account. And we are trying to explain this to the court in Strasbourg. But, of course, we will take certain measures, so in the new Law on Primary Education that will enter into force immediately after the New Year, we are demanding that the regionalization be changed in certain cities, not only in Shtip and Bitola, and transferring from one school to another is prohibited unless the family moves to another address. Teachers will receive training and we will implement programs for students, we are slowly solving this problem,” said Janevska.
In December 2022, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against the “Gjorgi Sugarev” Primary School in Bitola and the “Goce Delechev” Primary School in Shtip that they violated the right of children to non-discrimination in relation to their right to education, and due to such segregation, it awarded 38 affected families damages in the amount of 1,200 euros, or a total of 45,600 euros for both schools.
In August this year, the Basic Civil Court in Skopje also ruled that the Government, the Ministry of Education and Science, the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, the Ministry of Health, the State Education Inspectorate (SEI), the Municipality of Bitola and the Municipality of Shtip, discriminated against Roma children in the educational process. Both schools are attended by predominantly Roma children and have entirely Roma classrooms. The courts ordered the state, municipalities and schools to take measures to stop the discrimination.
