Proposed constitutional changes to the financing of primary schools

Compulsory primary education is carried out in public funded state schools. Private schools can also be financed from public funds, but only under certain conditions set by the law. That's stated in the proposed amendment to Article 57 of the Constitution.

At the beginning of the year the Constitutional Court ruled that the different financing of primary school programs of state and private schools is unconstitutional. It further annulled the statutory provision under which private schools are awarded only 85 percent of the funds received by state schools.

Members of parliament are now supposed to turn the Constitutional Court ruling into law, so that the state equally finances state and private primary schools. Those backing the state school system say this will help private primary schools bloom and lead to the decline of public education.

The members of four coalition and opposition parties, the SD Social Democrats, the DeSUS Party of Pensioners, the United Left and the ZaAB Alliance of Alenka Bratušek, have therefore decided to try change the Slovenian Constitution. The initiator of the constitutional changes, SD member Matjaž Han, said that public education was already under great financial pressure and that the constitutional ruling, which has erased the line between state and private schools, has pushed it even closer to the brink.

According to the head of the ZaAB parliamentary group, Jani Möderndorfer, the proposed changes to the Constitution will also be of help to the constitutional judges: "The truth is the amendment will actually help the Constitutional Court, which has already had to decide twice on the financing of private schools, in 2011 and 2014. It has difficulty in understanding the Article and that's why we have to make a clear distinction between public and private schools in writing."

Gregor Cerar, MMC;
translated by K. J.