Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic promised on Thursday that Albanian students in Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja, southern part of central Serbia, will get free textbooks in their mother tongue by September 1, but at the same time he called on Albanians to fulfil their obligation toward the Republic of Serbia and start paying their electricity bills.
Replying to MP questions, Vucic noted that students would get the textbooks both in Albanian and in Croatian and Bulgarian before the beginning of the next school year. ”The government will fulfil its obligations, but all citizens of Bujanovac, Presevo and Medvedja need to respect the law and start paying their electricity bills regularly from now on,” he said.
”It would not be fair for you (Albanian citizens) to go on avoiding payment of electricity bills for years on end,” he said.
”You do not have to love Serbia, but I am asking you to respect it and begin fulfilling your obligations toward it,” the prime minister said.
Serbian Minister of Education Srdjan Verbic explained that the problem of textbooks in Albanian was not resolved in the previous period due to the lack of funds and also because certain tenders were not completed on time.
Verbic announced that the draft law on textbooks, which should provide a systemic solution to all problems, would be filed to the parliament for adoption in autumn, and that an Albanian-speaking inspector in the educational sector would be appointed by the beginning of the new school year.
