Inspectorate closes “Penko” case in Butel: no violations in enrollment after Albanian class was closed

North Macedonia’s State Education Inspectorate has found no legal violations in the enrollment of pupils at the Petar Zdravkovski – Penko primary school in Skopje’s Butel municipality and has decided to end its inspection procedure, Portalb.mk reports.

What the inspectorate found

In a response sent to Portalb.mk, the inspectorate says enrollment complied with the Butel Municipal Council’s decision on primary school zoning. According to the inspectorate, the school first enrolled all children from its zone and then those who do not live in the zone or in Butel but have an older brother or sister attending the school, with the relevant certificates in their files. The inspectorate calls this “an established practice” under the Law on Primary Education and says it has sent its findings to the Ombudsman, although the Ombudsman’s office had earlier said it had not yet received them.

The closed class

The problem became public when local authorities decided that one of the five first-grade classes in the Albanian language would not open, despite strong demand for enrollment, while Macedonian-language classes with very few pupils operate in the same school. The municipality justified the decision with zoning, so that pupils from Čair would no longer enroll in Butel schools, even though some of them live just a few meters from the building.

Butel Mayor Darko Kostovski and Deputy Education Minister Driton Sulejmani later announced that children from other municipalities would be admitted only if they have a sibling at the school. That did not resolve the issue for pupils without siblings there, who were forced to go to other schools. Alliance for Albanians (AKI) councilors in Butel accused Sulejmani of lying, while parents submitted a petition to the municipality and the Education Ministry.