The Forum for Educational Change is calling on the Ministry of Education and Science to adjust the student meal allowance in line with annual inflation. According to Blendi Hodai, this is a legal obligation and, if implemented, the allowance should reach 172 denars on January 1, 2027.
Hodai said the Forum’s daily contact with students shows that enforcing the law on the meal allowance is their top priority. He stressed that the Ministry has not adjusted the allowance for inflation for three consecutive years and that the organization is asking for nothing beyond compliance with the law.
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The Forum opposes the Government’s proposal for a student meal allowance of 4,500 denars a month, to be used to buy food through an electronic system. Hodai called the model unacceptable, arguing that implementing it through m-services would require the Government and the Ministry of Education and Science to issue a tender to hire a company to build the platform.
He said such a platform would cost citizens a great deal and lead to the mismanagement of public money. Hodai said the funds should go to students who receive the allowance, rather than to software companies for a platform the Forum considers unnecessary.
Deputy Education Minister Driton Sulejmani, meanwhile, said the Ministry of Education and Science and the Government have spoken with student organizations and students and are awaiting their response to the offer. He said the proposal provides for an increase in the monthly amount and a new way to use it, primarily to buy food, similar to the model in Slovenia.
Sulejmani said the students had agreed to seek the views of all student unions and then respond to the institutions in writing on whether they accept the proposed solution.
Days earlier, a meeting between students, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Education Minister Vesna Janevska ended without a concrete result or an agreement to increase the current allowance of 140 denars. The Government and the Ministry of Education have proposed providing the subsidy through digital vouchers, following Slovenia’s model, while some student organizations have called for the allowance to be raised to 200 denars.
