Belgrade – About 84,000 students will receive free textbooks this year, too. On average, the number of socially disadvantaged families is decreasing, while most textbook sets actually go to the families with several children, said Vesna Nedeljkovic from the Ministry of Education.

Last year, about 84,000 students received free textbooks, and now we are entering the final “showdown.”

Vesna Nedeljkovic pointed out that, a month ago, the “Dositej” information base gave instructions to schools on how to fill in and enter the data on the hildren or parents who meet the requirements prescribed by the law, in order for the children to be entitled to free textbooks.

“We have collected the data, and so far we have about 84,000 students, so the figure is within the scope of last year’s one, but we have not closed the application yet, since it happens that the parents are late with submitting the data. We also get about 10 percent more books for libraries, if it happens that for some reason the parent did not apply on time at his/her school, then he/she has the opportunity to take it from the school library, ”Ms. Nedeljkovic said.  

According to her, their job is to do the public procurement, so that the publishers could, later on, deliver the books to schools, and the schools to the parents.

Speaking about what needs to be met in order to receive a free textbook, Ms.Nedeljkovic says that the Law on the Basics of the System regulates the right that they can do this, while the Government  allocates funds in the budget.

Speaking of who is entitled to free books, Ms. Nedeljkovic says that those are children from socially disadvantaged families, recipients of social benefits.

“The second category includes multi-member families, of which the first two children must be in the education system and we also have children who are educated under a special program, for which there are adjusted textbooks, since they are children with disabilities,”said the Assistant Minister.

As she says, textbooks are tailored to suit their needs, whether it's Braille or an enlarged font.

"We make it possible for schools to provide such children with computers that they can use," Ms. Nedeljkovic said.

Speaking of digital textbooks, Ms. Nedeljkovic said that all elementary school students would receive digital content for free, which is an important bit of information.

He also says that 500 out of 1,270 schools in Serbia have a project of “connected schools”, and the requirement was that the Internet was provided and that the schools were computer-equipped.

Ms. Nedeljkovic said that all first, second, fifth and sixth grade students would receive free textbooks.

Source: “Blic” daily, Jugmedia and Coordination Body