Serbia is one of the few countries in the former Yugoslavia where parents of students buy textbooks for primary school with their own money, the Alek Kavcic Foundation announced. The foundation also reminds that free primary education erases social differences.
“Our goal is to change that. Primary education is one of the basic human rights and must be completely free. The education of a child, at least the basic one, should never depend on the social status or ability of his parents,” the foundation said in a statement.
Free textbooks for all primary school children in Serbia, as it is emphasized, could be the first step towards completely free primary education. As it is stated, from the countries of the former Yugoslavia, students in Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Northern Macedonia receive free textbooks.
In Serbia, textbooks are free only for certain categories of students, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In Republika Srpska, they are free for all students from the first to the fourth grade, while in Banja Luka they are free for all primary school students.
Kavcic started the project for free textbooks last year, when he charged an illegal company for the use of its patent for reading magnetic cards.
With that money, he wants to provide free textbooks to students in Serbia, through his platform Besplatnabiblioteka.com.
In later statements for Nova Ekonomija, he stated that the “student cartel” does not exist anywhere in Europe, except in Serbia. According to him, certain companies that unite form the prices of textbooks for students in Serbia. The guild of all that is paid by their parents, who should set aside a third of the average monthly salary in Serbia for new textbooks, Nova Ekonomija reports.
