Forum for Educational Reforms sues Ministry of Education and Science over non‑indexed student meal

The Forum for Educational Reforms has filed an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Education and Science, arguing the ministry failed to adjust the subsidized student meal to match inflation. The Forum says the ministry has breached its legal duty for years and that the meal subsidy is a statutory right — not a discretionary government benefit.

Legal demand: correction, indexing and retroactive compensation

In the complaint, the Forum asks the Administrative Court to first find that the Ministry acted illegally over the last three years. It also asks the court to order the ministry to adopt a subordinate regulation to index the subsidized student meal to the inflation rate, and to require retroactive payment of damages to the Forum's members affected by the shortfall.

"Through this lawsuit we first ask the Administrative Court to rule that the Ministry of Education and Science has acted illegally in the past three years. Second, to rule that the Ministry must adopt a subordinate act that will index the subsidized student meal to the inflation rate, and third, for our members for whom we are filing the lawsuit today as the Forum for Educational Reforms, we request retroactively that it pay the damage that the Ministry has caused to those students," said Blendi Hodai of the Forum for Educational Reforms.

The Ministry of Education and Science says it is in talks with student representatives and is seeking an appropriate solution. Minister Vesna Janevska said the ministry is preparing a change to the existing model at the students' request so that the subsidy is used more effectively.

"They themselves asked, their associations, representatives asked us to change this system saying they would like something similar to what exists in Slovenia. Yes, we will try to the best of our abilities, because we are not Slovenia, to design it so that it suits them and we are beginning preparations to introduce that new system which is at their request but which we also believe will be more appropriate for the use of funds," said Vesna Janevska, Minister of Education and Science.

The Forum welcomed the announced rise of the daily subsidized meal to 180 denars but opposes using mobile-payment services to distribute the subsidy, arguing the current payment card system worked well. The ministry and government representatives previously signalled a tentative agreement with students to raise the monthly subsidy from 3,500 to 4,500 denars — roughly increasing the daily amount from 140 to about 180 denars.

Photo: press material from the event