Skopje, 13 March 2023 (MIA) — The Union of High-School Students is submitting Monday a proposal for Parliament to adopt amendments to the Law on Secondary Education that would provide free public transport to all high schoolers, including those attending private schools; disabled students; students who live closer than two and a half kilometers from their school; as well as make public transport free for high schoolers even in the summer as students from vocational schools have summer internships.

“According to the current law, although they have work internships as part of their dual education programs, they have to pay for their transportation,” Union of High-School Students president Luka Pavikjevikj said at a news conference Monday.

The union presented filmed interviews with private high school students who said they were discriminated against by not having accesss to free public transport despite their parents also being taxpayers. Also, private high school students studying on a scholarship said they needed free transportation to and from school as well as for extracurricular activities.

Pavikjevikj said some 2,000 out of a total of 71,000 high school students were denied the right to free public transportation.

Disability-rights activist Pande Eftimov of the Youth Education Forum said the current law discriminated against disabled high schoolers regardig public transport and said they, too, should get free access.

The proposed amendments would guarantee that disabled students get free transport and also put an end to the discrimination “based on the distance from home as well as the type of school – public or private,” Pavikjevikj said, adding that they would make “public transportation fair for all high school students.” mr/