English
We are ready for the school year, there are textbooks, it is visible that the infrastructure is improving, that we provide technical aid and everything that is needed. We have a basket with cheaper school supplies. I wish everyone much, much success, said Minister of Education Vesna Janevska during a visit to the Aco Sopov primary school in Radishani on the first day of the 2026-2027 school year. Janevska told the students to ask their parents for a brother or sister, citing the significant drop in enrollment in schools due to the demographic crisis and the closure of a number of schools in rural areas of Macedonia.
If we continue like this, we will continue to shut down schools. Perhaps I should send a message to first-graders: in addition to seeking to gain knowledge, perhaps they should seek to gain a brother or sister, so that we can reopen these temporarily closed schools in the future. The population should become aware of how important human capital is, above all for themselves and their lives and, of course, for their country – their homeland. Because we all know what it means to live in a progressive and well-developed country, said Janevska.
When asked by a journalist about the drop of the number of first-graders by about 3,000 compared to last year, Janevska replied that “demography is a special science and many things need to be done in that direction”, and that many measures have been introduced in education to improve learning conditions.
Two years ago, we made three picture books for grades one to three, entitled “Me, Mom, Dad, Grandpa and Uncle”. I hope that schools use them. Everything we do is very serious – infrastructure, technology, new curricula, new teaching aids, textbooks are regularly supplied. All with the aim of making life more pleasant for children in Macedonia. And when children are having a good time, their parents will also want, I assume, to stay here and will be encouraged to have more children, said the minister.