Parents in Konche protest after 11 pupils marked as not passed
Families at Goce Delchev Primary School say they were not shown the inspection report and have begun a boycott, threatening further measures.
Parents in the village of Konche staged a protest after 11 pupils at Goce Delchev Primary School were marked as not having passed last school year; nine of those pupils are of Turkish ethnicity. The protesters say the measure triggered a boycott at the start of the new academic year and that they have threatened further, more radical steps.
Parents demand to see the inspection report
“They only told us that the education commission, after an extraordinary inspection, confirmed the pupils’ repeats, but they did not show us the report and none of them spoke to us. How can pupils who had even ten points at the end pass, while our children with three points repeat the grade. They had regularly passed all previous grades, and now to repeat eighth and ninth grade. Therefore we doubt the report and believe that our pupils are being made to repeat deliberately so that they have more pupils and fulfil their quotas for classes and sections,” the outraged parents said at today’s protest.
Parents insist they were not given access to the written findings from the inspection and say no school or municipal representative has explained the decision to them personally. They argue that some pupils with far higher final scores were promoted while their children were held back.
According to the parents’ account, the repetitions were confirmed following an extraordinary oversight by an education commission; the protesters demand to be shown the inspection minutes and want a transparent explanation of the criteria used.
The parents say their central concern is that repeat decisions may be tied to administrative incentives: by increasing the number of repeaters the school could meet thresholds for forming additional parallel classes or sections, the protesters claim.
At the protest no representative of the school or municipal authorities spoke on record. The parents say they will maintain the boycott until they receive the inspection report and satisfactory answers about the criteria that led to the repeats.
Photo: СДК.МК)
