There is no reason why the winter break should start earlier and cut classes, because there is no drastic increase in the numbers of teachers and students in schools positive for the virus, the Minister of Education and Science Mila Carovska said on Monday.

In order to be able to talk about an earlier break, we need to have arguments why we would do that, why we would additionally cut classes, which take place continuously, without escalation of infections in schools. Less than 1 percent of the total number of teachers tested positive and less than 0.06 percent of students. This indicates that according to the plan according to which teaching takes place from October 1, the teaching should continue, until the situation changes drastically, Carovska told TV24.

The President of SONK, Jakim Nedelkov, on the other hand, pointed out Monday that the situation in education is alarming.

The numbers we managed to collect show that over 1,000 school workers are infected, ie are in isolation. This issue must be analyzed in terms of security and protection, and politics must not be pursued. This concept is currently functional and the recommendations are valid, but the numbers show that we have a large number of infections, which justifies the least important fact who got infected where. Let us remind that there are some that do not report being infected, said Nedelkov.

According to Carovska, not all infected teachers should be counted, but only those who teach in person, and according to the latest report, the number of those teachers is 280. The Minister denied SONK’s claims that there are currently over 1,000 infected teachers.

VMRO-DPMNE sais Tuesday that the party directors of the schools appointed by SDSM refuse to provide accurate data on infected teachers and students, as well as continue to hide and do not report the new cases, according to the party, probably for fear of angering Carovska.

VMRO-DPMNE demands that winter break starts  from December 15 due to the situation in which the education finds itself and the policies of the government that go so far as to insult the valuable educational workers, and they struggle to educate in such conditions.