Skopje, 5 July 2024 (MIA) – Following the Government’s decision, positive reforms in our country’s education system will start today, and students will have textbooks by September 1. The implementation of some parts of the concept concerning the curricula and programs for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades is postponed, but the elective subjects, which we believe are a good solution for the future of education for young people, will not be affected, Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska said at Friday’s press conference.

Janevska announced that after several days of discussions with the Bureau for Development of Education, a temporary solution has been found for students entering seventh grade on September 1. These students will continue using the old textbooks, as new ones based on the new concept’s curricula have not been completed. The Bureau for Development of Education will produce additional materials to fill the gaps in the current textbooks.

Janevska stressed that students will not be left without textbooks, stating, “unlike in previous years when the process of creating, printing, and approving textbooks was unsustainable, inconsistent, with numerous changes in the calls and errors in the textbooks for reasons that were truly unknown to us.”

“This decision will help us resolve a significant problem that has been accumulating over the past few years concerning the lack of textbooks. We worked tirelessly every day to find a solution to this issue, exerted maximum effort, and maintained daily communication and meetings with the Bureau for Development of Education to find a solution, and we have finally succeeded,” Janevska said.

Because textbooks based on the new concept’s curricula for primary education have not been developed, and given that the phased implementation that began in 2021 is supposed to include seventh graders this year, they will use the existing textbooks from the old curriculum.

In response to a journalist's question about whether this decision means that there will be no calls for author teams to create textbooks for seventh grade under the new concept, the Minister Janevska replied that by making this decision, the government concluded that the Ministry of Education and Science is “immediately tasked with halting all procedures related to this process.” She emphasized that no textbooks for seventh grade had been submitted for printing.

When asked whether the postponement of the concept applies only to the last third of primary education (seventh, eighth, and ninth grades) and what will happen to the earlier grades where it has already been implemented, Janevska said that they want to ensure continuity in education, as she put it, “without sudden changes and transitions.”

“Therefore, everything we believe is good in the concept will continue to exist. The curricula and programs for the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades will be revised, the integrated subjects like History, Geography, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, and Technical Education will be divided, and the elective subjects that we believe will be very useful in the educational system will remain,” Janevska added.

For History and Geography, subjects for which students did not have textbooks last year, the Bureau for Development of Education is responsible for developing teaching materials for these two subjects within the next two months.

Photo: MIA