Students will have textbooks, they have been distributed and are in schools. For the first time this year, we have completed this much earlier than the start of the school year, Macedonian Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska said Tuesday, one week before the start of the 2026/2027 school year.
“I cannot say that there will be none. Unfortunately, I believe that there will be. But I sincerely believe that it will be minimized and that it will be incidental,” said Janevska, asked whether she expects complaints about damaged textbooks after September 1.
The minister believes that after the organized online preparations, schools are already seriously approaching the registration of the required number of textbooks, i.e. for the replacement of damaged ones, and that the omissions they made have decreased in the past three school years.
Minister Janevska announced that around 14,500 first-graders have been enrolled for 2026/2027, but that is not the definitive number because the enrollment of first-graders who missed the enrollment deadline continues until the end of September. Regarding the optimization of the school network due to the introduction of single-shift teaching, the minister announced that this year she expects 26 rural schools that do not have first-graders enrolled and which, as she said, ‘allegedly attend classes” from five to eight children to be naturally closed.
