The Freedom and Justice Party (SSP) proposed today that the City of Belgrade should save on tablets and "other undefined services in the budget" this year by rebalancing the budget, and that this money should be used to purchase textbooks for all students from the first to the eighth grade, as well as for all Belgrade high school students. .
Mila Popović, President of the SSP Belgrade Board emphasized in a written statement that the SSP also proposes to provide money for one free meal in schools for all elementary and high school students in Belgrade in the planned budget rebalancing. Instead of "meaningless and dubious expenses", the city government can directly help the citizens of Belgrade so that their children will receive something from their city that will really benefit them and make their education easier, suggests Mila Popović.
"If there was money for the 'secret' procurement of tablets that are not used in classes, there is also money for textbooks and meals," concluded Popović.
The new school year starts in three weeks. The price of a set of textbooks for older elementary school students is about half of the average Serbian minimum wage. If you have younger children, the price is also lower.
For the first grade of primary school, a set of 10 textbooks from the Klet publishing house and the Textbook Institute costs 7.724 dinars, or 8.440 dinars. Thirteen Klet's books for the second grade cost 9700 dinars, and ten in the Institute cost 9343 dinars.
For the fifth basic, 14 books related to the main subjects and published by Klet cost 12.050 dinars, while those from the Institute are slightly cheaper - 11 dinars.
Eighteen books of the Institute for Textbooks for the most important subjects of the week are 13.244 dinars, and in Klet - 15.050. For 19 books of the eighth grade, you need to pay 12.709 dinars in the Institute, while the price of 18 books in the Cellar is 15.980 dinars.
Parents who buy textbooks through the school are allowed to pay them in installments, so a set of 18 books for the sixth grade of 16.283 dinars will be able to be paid in six installments. If you also buy four reading books, you will add another 920 dinars.
Reading is normally the lowest item on the list - in one school it is 660 dinars.
There are no free textbooks in Serbia, there are in the region.
In Republika Srpska they are free for lower elementary school students, and in Banja Luka for all grades. In Slovenia, students up to the third grade receive free textbooks and do not return them, while the others, from the fourth to the ninth grade, return the free textbooks they received at the end of the school year. Funds for free textbooks are obtained from the state budget.
In Croatia too. The law regulates that free textbooks are the property of the school.
Montenegro presents textbooks to primary school students. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, textbooks are bought.
The right to free primary school textbooks in Serbia is made possible by the Program for the acquisition of teaching materials for special categories of students and trainees.
S.Ć./ FoNet/NovaS
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