Mother from Nerezi sits in class with twin daughters with autism after state fails to provide assistants
A mother from Nerezi says she must attend lessons with her twin first-graders with autism because the state has not secured educational assistants.
Martina Mladenovski, a mother from the Nerezi neighbourhood of Skopje, has been sitting in first-grade lessons with her twin daughters, who have autism, since September 1 because the state has not provided the educational assistants the girls are entitled to.
Martina says the lack of assistants is widespread: many first-graders with disabilities remain without the support they need to attend regular (inclusive) education. While the father must go to work, the family pays privately for specialist examinations and nutritional supplements that are not issued on prescription.
She describes being passed back and forth between the school and the Ministry of Education and Science, and then to another school. "I don't know anymore how many times I should knock on which door for someone to finally hear what we parents of children with disabilities are saying. My two girls started regular school this year. For them it's a huge change, a new environment, new people, a new routine. And instead of focusing on their adjustment, learning and all the good things a new chapter brings, I have been sitting with them at school for several days. Why? Because they don't have educational assistants provided, and, imagine, they were entitled to only one. The answer we receive is that approval from the Ministry of Education and Science is awaited, and then Zlatan Sremec Primary School must announce a call and hire the assistants," she says, recounting how she was sent from the school to the Ministry and back again.
Martina says she cannot complain about the school, which is trying to arrange support, but the assistants who do appear are constantly different and unknown to her children. She stresses that children with disabilities need continuity and a familiar person to build trust: constant changes in routine and staff are not a small matter for a child with autism.
"For my children I will do everything in my power. But it is not right that I fill the gaps the system fails to fill, and apparently doesn't want to. I am not asking for privilege. I'm not asking for anything more than others. I ask that my children receive what they need to attend school on an equal basis. This is not only my story. This is a problem many parents face and too often remains unspoken," Martina says, adding that she and other parents registered the need for assistants on May 4 when enrolling the first-graders.
Ministry response and parents organising
The Ministry of Education and Science replied that "in the current school year 1,358 educational assistants are engaged in primary and for the first time – 166 in secondary education. The largest number so far, and a procedure is underway for engaging an additional number of experts who will provide educational assistance to children, in accordance with the needs reported by their parents. In the meantime, until the procedure for selection is completed, all primary and secondary schools are obliged to put into use all available staff and expert capacities they have in order to ensure continuous and functional support to students with disabilities and parents can contact the school directly."
Parents of children with disabilities have begun to organise on social media. A Facebook group called "Special Parents" shows many families who say their children lack educational assistants. Martina says she can no longer stay silent and calls on the authorities to ensure the continuity and stability these pupils need to be treated as students, not as a problem waiting for the system to find time for them.
Photo: press material from the event
