Textbooks offending Albanians to be withdrawn in North Macedonia

Artan Grubi

 Textbooks that offend Albanians and have other substantive and spelling errors will be withdrawn from the teaching process in primary and secondary education in North Macedonia, said Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi, after a meeting with the Minister of Education, Milla Carevska.

The decision followed public reactions regarding the content of the geography textbook for the second year of high school.

There can be found insults about the origin of Albanians.

"Albanians were Macedonians, but during the Ottoman rule they became Albanians. The Albanians of [Northern] Macedonia are of Circassian, Roma and Turkish descent," reads a textbook in the book.

There, Albanians are also presented as "occupiers of Western Macedonia", while in another unit, Kosovo does not correspond as a state with which Northern Macedonia borders.

“In the meeting we agreed that, in accordance with the Law on textbooks for primary and secondary education, all irregularities and injustices in all textbooks should be reviewed and corrected, starting immediately from the geography textbook for the second year of school." reads the written announcement from the cabinet of the Deputy Prime Minister of Northern Macedonia, Artan Grubi.

The withdrawal of books with offensive content has also been announced by the Prime Minister of this country, Zoran Zaev, but he has said that the books will not be able to be removed from use without the approval and publication of new textbooks.

Northern Macedonia has launched profound reforms in education, such as shortening courses or even classes, giving more importance to the practical part.