Mickoski: students will be able to use monthly subsidy for discounts in retail chains

Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski announced that the government is preparing measures to let students use their monthly subsidised meal allowance for additional discounts in retail chains, responding to a public post by Blendi Hodai that compared parliamentary meal prices with what students receive.

Hodai, a representative of the Forum for Educational Reforms, shared a photograph of the parliament restaurant menu on social media and questioned why preferential prices apply to officials while subsidised meals for students remain contested. In his post he wrote: "Here is the menu of the parliamentary restaurant, where the people's representatives can eat at preferential prices. And then, from that same Assembly, decisions are made about the student meal and for young people, of whom 38 percent face risk of poverty. The question is simple: why is preferential food justified for officials, and the subsidized meal for students a matter of debate?"

Government reply and the meeting with student representatives

Mickoski said he was "unpleasantly surprised and, I would say, shocked" by the tone of Hodai's statements, arguing that they amounted to an insult of full-time university professors. He stressed that he and Minister of Education and Science Vesna Janevska are themselves full professors and defended their long-term contribution to educating generations of students.

The prime minister also said he regretted that Hodai had not attended the meeting where he spoke with legitimate representatives of student movements about the student meal programme.

On the policy change, Mickoski declared: "We are already working in the Government on that, within what I spoke about, to allow students to use these privileges not only for the student meal, but that amount, that volume that will be approved monthly to continue to use it in chains for additional discounts, additional privileges." He presented the move as an expansion of the existing support for students rather than a reduction of the meal subsidy itself.

Addressing students directly, Mickoski said he considers them his "friends and supporters" and promised continued backing even after he returns to academic life. "And I would like to send a message to students that I as a full-time university professor am their friend, supporter. Because, after all, politics and this position are transient. When all this ends, I will return to the university and again work and socialize with students and try to transfer part of my knowledge and experience, which I hope will mean added value in many of their lives," he said.

The prime minister pointed to the government's recent initiatives — projects tied to student dormitories, provision of electronic devices for students, activities for pupil and student homes, and construction of new university campuses — as proof of support for young people.

Separately, the Forum for Educational Reforms has filed a complaint with the Administrative Court against the Ministry of Education and Science. The organisation alleges the ministry failed to adjust the student meal subsidy in the past three years to reflect the annual inflation rate required by Article 2.1 of the law.

Photo: press material from the event