High school students and their parents are staging protests across Macedonia tomorrow, in defiance of the plan by Education Minister Mila Carovska to introduce digital only textbooks.

Mila Carovska is destroying our education system. We support digital learning, but not like this. We want to keep the printed books and to return to school starting in September, said protest organizar Maksim Krsteski.

The protests will be held at noon in front of town halls in all main cities, and in front of the Education Ministry in Skopje. Opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski also criticized Carovska’s plan today, calling it disastrous and rejected by all parties.

I’m in favor of modernization of our education, but it must go hand in hand with maintaining the in-person model, in schools, in classrooms. That is what the students and their parents are demanding, Mickoski said.

Many are worried that the “reform” is just another way in which Carovska wants to rewrite textbooks – mainly the history books – in line with demands from Bulgaria, Greece and other neighbors. This is the second hastily proposed plan by her office that leads in the same direction – to set aside existing books and prepare new ones.