With the beginning of the school year, some of the municipalities also announced the announcements for public procurements, which require private agencies for the provision of schools and kindergartens. But the situation in the capital shows that in a territory of only a few kilometers, different modes are used to ensure order, peace and security in primary schools. Everything depends on which municipality the child studies in. In some elementary schools, the municipality allocates funds for this purpose, in others the parents choose an agency themselves through the Parents' Council, and in third schools there is no security and the children go to classes "on luck".

- Until last year, our security was at a satisfactory level, with patrol security, an alarm system, cameras from the company were installed and all positions were covered with them. However, the security did not enter the classrooms during the lessons, because it is there to protect the students from outsiders, and the teachers and the professional service are in charge of the internal incidents.

Of course, if something happens in front of the security guards, if a fight happens, they will react and separate the children, but we have not had such cases - Aleksandar Filipchev, the director of "Gjorgia Pulevski" OU, told "Sloboden Pechat".

OU "Gjorgia Pulevski" is located in the Skopje municipality Aerodrom. This year, this municipality allocated funds for the provision of primary schools and kindergartens. From the announcement for public procurement, it can be seen that there will be physical and patrol security for 9 months for the facilities and school yards from Monday to Friday, from 7 am to 18 pm. In addition to the alarm system, video surveillance system with 4 cameras and digital recorders, the agency winning the tender will also conduct patrol rounds from 18 pm to 7 am, every day at an interval of two hours.

Security guards have the right to check the identity of people entering the school, to warn them to stay away from the school, to prohibit unauthorized recording and the introduction of cameras, but they also have the right to detain a person who is caught in the act of committing a crime that is prosecuted duty, until the police arrive. Security also performs a visual inspection of persons at their own discretion, in order to prevent the introduction of non-prohibited assets, especially weapons or knives.

Unlike the Municipality of Aerodrom, which will select an agency that will "cover" all the schools and kindergartens in the municipality, in other municipalities, parents themselves decide whether to find an agency and are forced to cover the cost out of pocket. Sometimes it happens that they are dissatisfied with the agency they found themselves.

- I am absolutely dissatisfied with how the security at the school takes care of the children's safety. I think that the people who are sent to the schools by the various agencies are untrained and unmotivated for the job. In particular, in my children's school, the parents themselves pay the security guards with the explanation from the Municipality that there are not enough funds for that.

There are constant incidents, fights and verbal quarrels between children, which are resolved by the intervention of other children. I am afraid every day when I send them to school. We pay 2.200 denars a year for two children for security and there are many cases of bullying, but I agree that no security can solve that - says a parent from the Skopje settlement Kisela Voda whose name is known to the editorial staff. 

In its work program for the period from 2024 to 2028, the Government has foreseen a change in the way schools in the country will be provided. Unlike now, when schools are guarded by private security agencies, the Government foresees in its program that the state will assume the responsibility of guaranteeing the safety of schools through the establishment of a State Security Agency.

"The Government's focus will be on the prevention and protection of children and young people as our most valuable social resource. For those reasons, we envisage that, unlike now when schools are guarded by private security agencies, the state will assume the responsibility of guaranteeing the safety of schools and our youngest - through the establishment of a state security agency", the Government Program states. .

The same idea can be read in the VMRO-DPMNE party program in the section on safe schools.

"In addition to securing the schools, this agency will have the obligation to secure the critical infrastructure as well as other state institutions depending on the capacities, possibilities and solutions," it is written in the party program.

But for now this Agency is just a letter on paper. The Ministry of Education and Science told "Sloboden Pechat" that it is not planned to be under their jurisdiction.

- We are talking about an institution that will not be under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education and Science, taking into account that it will not be engaged in educational activities and the implementation of the educational process - the Ministry of Education answered us, adding that for those reasons can answer the questions of when this agency is planned to function, nor how much employment is foreseen in its systematization, nor how much money will be needed for its functioning.

From the Government, however, we received silence on the subject.

The Chamber for Private Security, on the other hand, at the level of the private security activity, is not at all familiar with the idea when formulating the Government's program. There is no enthusiasm among private security providers for this heralded agency.

- For our sector, this idea is completely incomprehensible in terms of the reasons and goals, the way of organization, and we think that it is contrary to the modern global conceptions of the security sector. Modern conceptions of the security sector are based on the division of public and private security, with shared, delegated and clearly demarcated responsibilities between the police and private security agents - statements from the Chamber of Private Security for "Free Press".

The information available to the Chamber, obtained from the legal entities that provide school security, indicates that there is no increased violation of school security.

- We believe that strengthening the security of the school if it is related to reports of alleged bombs in the past years, it is a matter for other authorities in the state that deal with security, and neither private security nor any state agency can prevent or clear up such such an occurrence. If the question refers to a violation of public order and peace in schools, our knowledge and information from legal entities that perform private security in schools indicate that there is no increased number of incidents and violations of security in schools where private security companies are engaged, i.e. , they are reduced to a minimum and the private security workers react immediately and invite members of the Ministry of the Interior for further action - the Chamber of Private Security clarifies.

All this can be supported by other statistics from the security domain. Namely, according to the Law on private security, the entire operation of private security is under the supervision and control of the Ministry of the Interior.

In that sense, we would like to point out that to date the Ministry of the Interior has not revoked the license to work from a private security company, nor has it imposed any other measures against private security workers in connection with the performance of security work and tasks in schools, the Chamber of Private Security has decided .

The private security sector functions as a segment of the state's overall security system in accordance with the Law on Private Security and employs more than 6 private security workers employed by hundreds of companies. The chamber says that the entire sector has been compliant with European regulations for almost 30 years, with powers delegated by the state under the supervision and control of the state through the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

And while for the time being the State Security Agency is an idea on paper for which the Chamber of Private Security has not been consulted, schools in the country continue to publish announcements for the public procurement of security services as before. In Ohrid, the municipality is solving this aspect for the first time this year. Until now, there has been no security, but this year a tender has been announced and the three secondary and five primary schools in this city will be provided by a private company.

 - In Ohrid, there were attempts to introduce security guards in schools, but this is an outdated model and compared to the model where the facilities are provided by a private agency, I think it is also more expensive. The question is whether a security guard could handle the potential security challenges. Over the years, the state Agency for the provision of schools was also promised, but this has not been realized so far. The idea for this state school security agency in the past, I think, was to hire members of the Army who were retiring earlier and planned to integrate them into the framework of that agency. But there is no beginning, there is nothing, and for years the topic has been stuck in place. That's why we in Ohrid decided to make a project and solve our problem. Although in Ohrid we did not have many deviant occurrences in the schools, there is still some caution, especially at night, about what could be happening in the schoolyards. This is how we managed to design a package, i.e. to carry out a public procurement for a security agency, with 24-hour video surveillance, patrol security of the facilities, and the shift manager will also have access to a so-called panic button, where in the event of a fight in one minute it would be the security has been alerted - Dimitar Spaseski, head of the Department of Education in the Municipality of Ohrid, told "Sloboden Pechat".

He added that a complete camera system was also procured with the tender.

That camera system will remain our property after one year, that is, we are not obliged to extend the contract with the same agency. The municipality allocated funds from its own budget because this is the first time we have security in schools, there was no such thing before, he points out.

Otherwise, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, through the Department for Prevention, also takes care of the safety of students in schools across the country. Workshops are constantly held, manuals are created for the members of the Prevention Clubs and the professional services in secondary schools.

It is part of the preventive measures to prevent peer violence and cyber bullying. Good practices for behavior, recognition and handling in cases of violence in schools are also presented at these workshops.

With this text, the Free Press joins the initiative for increased transparency of the institutions that the Institute for Communication Studies implements in cooperation with the media within the "Use Facts" project, which is supported by the British Embassy.