The Union of High School Students on behalf of the 2020/2021 generation of high school graduates on Thursday sent a letter via e-mail to lawmakers seeking support for its demands – senior students to take two instead of four exams as part of state exit examination.
Their move comes after, as they claim, being ignored by the Education Ministry and categorically refusing any compromise on the matter.
If the Education Ministry fails to demonstrate any good will, the Union says it will seek changes to the Law on Secondary Education. In the letter to the lawmakers, the Union says it is ‘the last democratic step.’ “It will be clearly stated that the provisions in the amended law will be temporary, applied only in the 2020/2021 school year,” it says.
The Union of High School Students, led by the president Blendi Hodai, sent the letter to the e-mail addresses of 85 lawmakers posted on the Parliament’s website.
The high school seniors, organized by the Union of High School Students, started boycotting, by not logging in to attend online classes, the start of the second semester of 2020/2021 school year on Jan. 21, calling for their demands to be met.
Blendi Hodai told MIA that the high school seniors will end the boycott on Friday and will start mulling next steps as of tomorrow and whether to join distant learning as of this Monday.
According to him, the boycott took place in 20 cities. 79% of the high school seniors boycotted two days ago, it fell to 76% on Thursday. In Skopje, Hodai said, some high school seniors attended classes while others didn’t.
In the letter to the lawmakers seeking support for their demand to take two exams (mother tongue – Macedonian, Albanian or Turkish – and the second in relation to the field the graduate will pursue at university), the Union of High School Students says it is ‘reasonable and executable’.
“Our society shouldn’t ignore the consequences from distant learning, which is marred with flaws,” it says.
Also, the Union says it fully understands the necessity of having state exit examination organized, noting that the pandemic has revealed that education could function without it. In the letter, they point out the May 2020 government decree revoking state examination of the high school seniors of the 2019/2020 generation citing ‘the incapacity of the educational system to organize such an endeavor.’
