Calls for protests are spreading on a widely used Facebook group of parents of school-age children, as uncertainty grows over whether the school year will begin in September. Macedonia conducted the last school year mostly online, and Education Minister Mila Carovska insisted that this year it will be held in-person. But with the number of coronavirus cases spiking, it is not clear whether this will happen, and if classes will begin on September 1st.

The fourth year textbooks are not ready. The plan to provide children with digital devices is geting nowhere. Half of the teachers haven’t completed their training, and we still haven’t received the diplomas for last year, warned group administrator Dragan Spasovska.

The group calls on the Minister to give up on her plan to move the textbooks to a digital format, and to focus on preparing for the start of the school year first.