With just three weeks to go before the school year starts, the Education and Healthcare ministries still haven’t come up with a plan how they expect children to go back to schools.

Public education has been put on hold since March, with the outbreak of the coronavirus, and except for an improvised attempt at distance learning, families have been on their own. The outgoing Government insists that it will have the schools ready for in-person teaching by September, but a meeting scheduled today to finalize the safety protocols ended with no agreement. Meanwhile the infection and mortality rate in Macedonia remains the highest in the region.

After coming to an eventual agreement, the proposals will also have to go through Parliament, which is in the process of being constituted. The only specific details coming from the committee of experts are that they want to have classes shorter than usual and that the final system will differ in various municipalities, due to the local coronavirus spread rate.