STA, 16 August 2021 - Four centre-left opposition parties have requested a session of the parliamentary Education Committee to get answers from the government on how schools will organise when they reopen on 1 September given that coronavirus numbers are surging yet again.
"The new school year starts in just over two weeks but we do not have any answers about how classes will be organised," Marko Koprivc, a deputy for the Social Democrats (SD), said on Monday.
The opposition alleges Slovenia does not have a strategy for the new school year and that schools have not received any instructions from the Education Ministry yet.
They said Education Minister Simona Kustec had failed to use the summer for preparations, instead she attended the Tokyo Olympics as a tourist.
The parties expect Prime Minister Janez Janša to attend the committee session since it is him, not Minister Kustec, who holds the reigns in the educational system.
Indeed, Left deputy Željko Cigler said Janša should dismiss the minister lest he be held responsible for the "collapse of the Slovenian educational system".
The opposition has not yet discussed whether to seek a vote of no confidence against the minister, but Cigler said this was one way to "stop the destructive educational policy".
The Education Ministry has for weeks faced criticism from SVIZ, the teachers' union, and from several head teachers about the absence of instructions as to how school work should be organised.
In the last school year Slovenian pupils spent several months learning from home, before they returned to classrooms in spring.
It remains unclear for now whether there will be mask mandates at schools once again, while according to Health Ministry State Secretary Franc Vindišar, mandatory vaccination for teachers is not being considered.
