Child poverty in Montenegro
Child poverty in Montenegro
late, reaching the pupils only at the end of September. Used textbooks are one of the indicators that a child belongs to a family in a difficult financial situation. Free textbooks are a stigma on one hand, particularly in the first grades of primary school when children are still relatively too young to notice the socioeconomic differences on basis of clothes, mobile phones, etc. but a lack of textbooks clearly indicates poverty. The period without textbooks is very difficult for children, and it turns out that teachers do not have any understanding for the situation these children are in. In some schools teachers gave these children something else to do in order not to disturb the other children whilst doing exercises.
90
Besides not going through the curriculum in this way, such actions insult the children and negatively affect their self-respect.
from friends ’or neighbours’ children, but this still does not solve the problem of completing exercises in textbooks.
Textbooks for the first grade of primary school are created for active learning and active use, which include solving tasks in the textbook itself, and not in a notebook. Children of recipients of MA whose textbooks are late, after they get these textbooks have to invest extra time in order to subsequently complete everything they missed. Since these children are at the beginning of their schooling process, they need a lot of time to complete the missed lessons. In order to make things easier for their children, parents borrow textbooks
Going to secondary school is generally a much greater expense for the household, primarily because of textbooks. Namely, there is no possibility of using free textbooks even for recipients of MA, so all secondary school pupils have to buy them. At the same time, secondary school textbooks, particularly those for vocational schools such as Medical School, are substantially more expensive. Parents usually photocopy textbooks that they borrow or get used textbooks if they know someone who went to the same school. While non-Roma households try to have their children finish at least three grades of
“My daughter is in the first grade of primary school and she tells me that her teacher tells her to pick up paper from the floor or clean the board just to be silent while the other children are doing their exercises because she still doesn’t have book that we are waiting to get from CSW.”
“My son is 9 years old and when he gets his books he has to sit and learn for many nights in order to complete everything he missed. First he does his current homework and then continues with what he missed.”
A mother, a recipient of MA, Bijelo Polje
A mother, a recipient of MA, Nikši’ 91