With the beginning of the new school year, another old wound from the education system was opened. Despite the fact that the Constitution provides equal treatment for students from both public and private secondary schools in the country, the current situation in Prague does not show this. High school students from private schools must pay a ticket.

– In June 2023, the former president of the Union of Secondary School Students, Luka Pavićević, submitted an initiative to evaluate the constitutionality of parts of the Law on Secondary Education to the Constitutional Court. The same year in December, the Union achieved its goal, with the Constitutional Court ruling that different treatment of secondary school students in relation to the acquisition of the right to use free transportation is contrary to Article 9 paragraph 2 and Article 44 paragraph 2 of The Constitution. With this, we expected that the institutions would enable the students to exercise their right to free transportation - say the Union of Secondary School Students.

Two months after the decision of the Constitutional Court, with the beginning of the school year, JSP informed that all students from secondary schools will receive free tickets except those from private schools. The Ministry of Education and Science also disclaims responsibility and says that funds are allocated from the state budget only for public education.

While the institutions transfer responsibility to each other, the decision of the Constitutional Court of the country is not respected. That is why the Union of Secondary School Students calls on the Ministry of Education, the City of Skopje and the JSP to respect the Constitution and implement the decision of the Constitutional Court.

See the statement of Berin Muhamed, president of the Union of High School Students, below.