Skopje, 17 November 2023 (MIA) — The Ministry of Education and Science has put out an open call for seventh-grade textbook manuscripts in line with the ongoing elementary education reform.

The chosen textbooks will be introduced in the 2024-25 school year.

In September 2024, seventh-grade students in schools nationwide should be issued new textbooks on Natural Sciences; Mathematics; History and Civics; Macedonian; Albanian (native and elective); Serbian; Turkish; and Bosnian. Fifth-graders who are native Albanian speakers should be issued a new Albanian textbook as well.

The submission deadline is Jan. 15, 2024.

The chosen authors will be paid a net amount of 327,510 denars per textbook. Eligible authors need to meet the requirements laid out in Article 10 of the Law on Textbooks for Primary and Secondary Education.

Earlier this week, Minister of Education and Science Jeton Shaqiri said this year's procedure for publishing new textbooks was starting earlier than last year's.

The education authorities' late development of the sixth grade curriculum had caused delays in the publication of textbooks and their delivery to sixth graders, but they should receive their seventh grade textbooks on time next year, he said.

"We have had problems in the past, but we want to prove that with timely calls for authors, there will be plenty of time to make and print the textbooks for the next school year," Shaqiri said.

Also, the education minister said the fifth and sixth grade History and Civics textbooks were still not published and delivered to schools because there were no available experts to review and edit the final manuscripts.

He said the Ministry of Education and Science, after no one had applied to their calls, wrote to university professors nationwide to ask them to review and edit the manuscripts. mr/