For the parents who will not enroll their children in school, besides the fines so far terminating of social assistance is being predicted if they are beneficiaries.

The socially endangered families will remain without the monetary assistance from the state if the parents do not enroll their children in elementary education. The social assistance will also be terminated for the parents who will not enroll their children in high school if it becomes obligatory in the next year. This is the measure for stimulation for total seizure of the children in education which will be applied in the following school year. The stimulative measure is predicted to be implemented in the new law for social protection, which will be prepared by the Ministry of labor and social policy, and also at the moment the Ministry of education is working on measures for seizure of as many children as possible in education. According to the statistical data, social assistance is being used by total of 65 960 households.

The socially endangered families which receive assistance from the state will continue to receive it if they enroll their children in school. The medical certificate for the child which says that has received all of the necessary vaccines will be evidence that the child is included in education. Only in this way the socially endangered families can continue to receive social assistance – says Zaklina Velickovska, a spokesperson for the Ministry of labor and social policy.

The Minister of education Sulejman Rusiti announces that the medical examinations will be provided as assistance of the socially endangered families through the project which the department will conduct with the World Bank. But Rusiti also announces that they will not forget the fines from the Law for elementary education for the parents who do not enroll the children in school. The Law predicts monetary fines from 5 to 20 thousand denars for the parent or guardian if they do not enroll their children in preparation year or if they do not allow them to attend regular classes. Sources say that the article has existed since before, but the schools and educational inspectors did not pay much attention to them so the parents were not fined. According to the analyses made by the Ministry of education in these last few years, the largest percentage of children not included in the educational process are from Roma nationality. The second are the Albanian and Turkish children. In the State educational inspectorate say that in 2005 from first to eight grade 758 children were not encircled from which 316 were Albanian. From there they say that they are still processing these kinds of data for 2006.

In the preparation classes from 2005, 122 children were not enrolled. Most of them are from Turkish nationality. 180 children were not encircled from the first to fourth grade most of them from Roma nationality. From the fifth to eight grade 578 children were not encircled and most of them are from Albanian nationality. In 276 cases the reason why the children were not enrolled is that the families moved abroad. All of these cases the people are Albanian. We do not know the reasons for not being in school for the children from the other nationalities. In 2005, from 461 cases, 201 violation applications were submitted – says Gorgi Nikolov, the director of the Educational inspectorate.

Ljubica Grozdanovska Dnevnik 09.01.2007