How much the construction of the National Stadium will cost is not yet known. However, the calculations that appeared in the media indicate that the total value of the works could reach as much as 540 million euros.
If this figure is taken into account, for the next nine years, all students in Serbia could have free students.
However, the Minister of Education, Slavica Đukić Dejanović, said that the Ministry of Education has no money and that local governments should think about this.
Negligible cost to the state
Free books were given to students in Belgrade, and it is the only larger city where all children receive them, while in other cities it is a practice that only first-graders receive textbooks in this way.
The cheapest set of books costs 7.000, and Jelena Žarković, a professor at the Faculty of Economics, says that free textbooks for all children would cost the state six or seven billion dinars.
"That would be in the order of 0,1 to 0,15 percent of GDP," Žarković said for RTS.
Commissioner for the Protection of Equality, Brankica Janković, believes that there is a legal basis for all children to receive free textbooks. She also sent a recommendation to the Ministry in order to prepare for next year.
Janković states that he supports the Government's decision, which made it possible to provide textbooks for children with disabilities, children from materially disadvantaged families, and where it is the third or fourth child in the family.
As she said recently, she will not criticize the affirmative measure that children in Belgrade receive free textbooks, she says that it is not right that in Crna Trava or Gadžina Han, where people have less means of living, they do not receive free textbooks.
"However, it should be taken into account that the so-called middle class lives quite challengingly, quite hard. We need to see how to find the funds. Surely we as a state can find funds for textbooks somewhere, I believe that the Government and the Ministry of Finance could with a fair distribution based on social justice, as our Constitution says, and the Law on the Basic System of Education and Training, and the Law on Textbooks ", said Jankovic.
The online petition for free textbooks launched by the "Kreni-Promeni" organization shows that the public has the same attitude. From August 29 to today, more than 50.000 citizens have signed the proposal that all students in Serbia have the right to free textbooks.
Local government issue
It is estimated that one fifth of all students in Serbia, from Subotica to Vranje, receive free books on various grounds. That's about 87.000 schoolchildren, mostly first-year students.
Minister of Education Slavica Đukić Dejanović says that the local self-government units that planned funds for textbooks as primary allocations in their budgets, such as Belgrade or small Subotica, did so.
"At the government level, a decision was made that every third and subsequent child in the family will receive free textbooks," the minister added.
The Ministry of Education says that more than 90 percent of its budget is spent on teacher salaries, and that is why free books are an issue for local governments.
BG/RTS
Read daily news, analysis, commentary and interviews at www.vreme.com
