PDK: Even this year, Kurti Government is leaving students without books at the start of the school year

Democratic Party of Kosovo Deputy Chairman Bessiana Musmati has criticised Qeverina Kurti because she is again leaving students without books at the start of the school year.

Musmurati, at a media conference, said yesterday's announcement by Education Minister Arberie Nagavci that books will be bought the same as last year is a sign that September 1st will again start with chaos, confusion, without textbooks.

This is the third consecutive September in education crisis. Teachers' strike in 2022, a lack of books in 2023, and it seems that there is still a lack of books in 2024. So unfortunately, every September is finding the Government of Kosovo and Minister Nagavci unprepared. While the test results are P The ISA has alarmed us, Minister Nagavci has repeatedly decided on its meaningless experimentation, not providing school books on time. Instead of taking steps forward with structural reform, Minister Nagavci is bringing us back with wrong decisions. So once again classrooms 1 through 9th grade will begin the year without books”, she stressed.

Musmurati said the Kurti Government is spending over 20m euros on the purchase of the same books that were bought at about 3.5m euros in 2017, for over 100,000 more students than now, and Minister Nagavci's is not giving a shit, because experiments that resulted in error, are again deliberate.

The Minister told us that there are 218 thousand students who will be subsidised by 80 or 110 euros. If we take an average that every student will be subsidized by 95 euros, then it would cost the state budget 20 million and 776 thousand euros in book equipment. So even later, almost three times more expensive than in the past few years. For example, the book of the Abetar, by large, was purchased by the Ministry early at about 7 euros, while parents at the library last year bought it for about 11 euros. That means for every employee bought, the parents paid about 4 euros more. And yesterday we were told, this harmful practice will continue this year”, she said.

According to Musmurat, last year the Kurti Government deprived education from the digitalisation project, using the funds dedicated to this process to cover book subsidies.

Last “vitin, to cover the additional cost of about 8m euros for subvention, the Government received funds from the Education Digitalisation Project. So to buy me more expensive books, the Ministry of Education sacrificed digitalization. What project will be halted this year to buy books that cost you the most?”, she stressed.

Mousmati pointed out there have been students who for two half-years missed some of the books.

Moreover, at one point it was said that the parents' recent write-offs for last year were made in May of this year. So we can conclude that there have been students since September to May, so a month before the lesson was completed there were no such books”, she added.

Musmurat said that next year, in PDK governance, the supply of books will no longer be the subject of September 1st, because digitisation of the processes in education will be established in the service of students.

In order to ensure that this public money mismanagement is no longer repeated and the lack of classes is halted, the parliamentary investigative commission must do its job without the political interference of the ruling party as quickly as and the justice bodies finish investigations once and for all. The only good news in all of this, which gives us hope for the future, is that we are only on the verge of new elections. Arberie Nagavci should no longer be Minister of Education from next year. Our citizens will be able to experience the difference of opinion in government by the arrival of Bedri Hamza and his team at the head of state”, she concluded.