Skopje, 5 September 2025 (MIA) -- In response to complaints by parents about the low quality textbooks their children received at the start of the 2025-26 school year, including damaged secondhand textbooks with many pages torn out, Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska told a press conference Friday thеre indeed was a problem with the Mathematics textbook for fourth grade and the Ministry of Education and Science would try to solve it.

In response to reporters' questions about problems with History textbooks, Janevska said new History textbooks were available for fifth, sixth and seventh graders. "The challenge is the eighth grade History textbook," she said.

"The History textbook approved by previous governments was withdrawn in 2018-19 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the request of the joint Bulgarian and Macedonian commission.

"Why none of the previous ministers over these past five years did anything about the eighth grade History textbook, I cannot say. You will have to ask them," Janevska said.

Asked why education authorities had not published an eighth grade History textbook this year either, she said a public call would be issued soon for a new History textbook in line with a new eighth grade curriculum.

"I think it would have been an unnecessary cost for the state budget to produce an eighth grade textbook in line with the old curriculum when in two weeks' time we will have a new curriculum and a new eighth grade textbook," she said.

The secondhand History textbooks given to eight graders this school year were not approved by the ministry, she pointed out.

However, eighth graders in 2026-27 would receive a new History textbook, she said. 

Asked about complaints by elementary school students receiving textbooks with pages missing, Janevska said secondhand textbooks needed to be replaced every five years, according to the law. Schools had not been doing this, but the law would be enforced from now on, she said.

She also said students needed to take better care of their textbooks and not tear any pages out. In addition, she said, each school needed to have a committee that would inspect each textbook at the end of the school year and charge the parents a fine if their children had damaged it.

Asked about what the state had spent on textbooks this year, the education minister said the total cost was 11 million euros. mr/