Deputy Education Minister Spiro Ristovski held a press conference on Monday to detail the work of his department in reforming the system and investing in public education infrastructure. Ristovski said that in the past 10 years, the budget for education has steadily grown and has increased by 72,3 percent, from MKD 13,4 billion (EUR 220 million) in 2006 to 23,1 billion today (EUR 377 million).
"This clearly shows that we have positioned education in our development agenda. The approved funds were evenly distributed in improving the quality of education and in improving the infrastructure, in elementary, high school and higher education", Ristovski said.
In the report, Ristovski said that 74 new schoolhouses were built, and over 400 were reconstructed, to the tune of EUR 50 million. Only in the past two years, 14 new schools were built and 50 reconstructed, and by the end of 2016, the foundation for six new schools will be laid. Additional EUR 25 million were invested in building 51 sports halls across the country, 13 of which were built in the last two years, and nine more are under construction. "This has greatly improved conditions for sports activities in our schools", Ristovski said.
In the reforms conducted in the past 10 years, elementary and high school education was made mandatory for all, and in the past seven years, textbooks are provided for no additional charge. Transportation for pupils who live more than 2,5 kilometers away from their schools is also provided.
"We introduced nine year long elementary education in which special focus is placed on learning foreign languages, information technology and entrepreneurship, which are now part of the high school education as well. Macedonia is the only country in the region that introduced new educational curicula adapted from the program developed by Cambridge University. One of the greatest reforms was to provide a computer for every child in school, and to introduce external testing, which has measured the objectivity of individual teachers since 2013. We will continue to build upon this testing program and achieve its goals throughout its application", Ristovski said.
The Deputy Education Minister said that lowest wages in education have more than doubled, by 119 percent, and highest wages have increased 67 percent in the past 10 years. Eight thousand education employees who had temporary contracts received full time contracts. Two new public universities were opened, with 25 faculties and 65 dispersed studies programs, that made higher education available in smaller cities. Spirovski added that the Ministry has also invested in the program allowing students to receive state scholarships if they enroll at any of the 200 top rated universities across the world.
The opposition SDSM party issued a press release following Ristovski's press conference to dispute his claims. "In the past 10 years, education was continuously destroyed, with bad policies and laws, with millions thrown in unnecessary projects, experiments, in corrupt printing of textbooks and in needless stress for the students with the external testing. VMRODPMNE is the greatest problem in our education", SDSM writes in its press release.