POSITION STATEMENT CONCERNING THE 2026 STATE BUDGET ACT

POSITION STATEMENT

by

AMALIPE CENTER FOR INTERETHNIC DIALOGUE AND TOLERANCE

and

THE “MISSION ACHIEVER: INSPIRED TO SUCCEED” SCHOOL NETWORK

CONCERNING THE 2026 STATE BUDGET ACT

Amalipe Center for Interethnic Dialogue and Tolerance is a non-governmental organisation that has been working in the field of education for 25 years and supports the “Mission Achiever: Inspired to Succeed” School Network, comprising 259 schools across the country, as well as an informal network of educational mediators with more than 500 participants. Together, we work to prevent school dropout and early school leaving, increase enrolment and ensure equal access to education, as well as to promote intercultural education.

At the outset, we would like to express our satisfaction that the 2026 State Budget Act has been adopted and promulgated, as it will provide greater security and predictability within the education system.

Nevertheless, we wish to express our deep concern regarding the following issues:

Article 114

Following the publication of the 2026 State Budget Act, schools and organisations became deeply concerned about the requirements of Article 114 and the lack of clarity regarding its application. The issues and challenges arising from the current wording are as follows:

  • Unclear scope and risk of inconsistent application. The most immediate problem is the lack of a sufficiently clear distinction as to which activities and which expenditures fall within the restrictions under Article 114. This leaves school principals and accountants in a position where they have to determine for themselves whether particular expenditures are eligible, while facing a significant risk of subsequent financial sanctions. The unclear application of Article 114 places school principals in a situation where they bear personal responsibility for interpreting the eligibility of expenditures and, in practice, compels them to exercise excessive caution, which may restrict activities directly related to the quality of education.
  • Restrictions on the exchange of experience and good practices between schools. Exchange visits between educational institutions are an established mechanism for improving the quality of education. They enable school principals, teachers, educational mediators and other professionals to observe successful models in practice and adapt them to their own institutions. Such visits are particularly important for disseminating innovations, effective models for preventing school dropout, working with parents, student self-government, intercultural education, violence prevention and other effective practices. Moreover, they form the basis of a number of national programmes, such as “Innovation in Action”, among others.
  • Restrictions on continuing professional development. The continuing professional development of pedagogical specialists is regulated by law and is a mandatory part of the educational process. The current wording puts at risk training delivered to joint groups comprising teachers from several educational institutions, participation in national training activities and other similar forms of professional development.
  • Unequal treatment of professional development providers. A restrictive interpretation of the term “public training institution” places different licensed providers of professional development on an unequal footing and undermines competition in the labour market. Organisations with approved and registered professional development programmes may, in practice, be excluded from the possibility of delivering face-to-face training outside a school or kindergarten, while other providers are afforded such an opportunity solely because of their legal status.
  • Restrictions on participation in conferences, seminars and professional forums. Professional development does not take place solely through formal qualification courses. Conferences, seminars, academies, round tables and other professional forums are important mechanisms for exchanging knowledge, presenting innovations, building professional communities and discussing pressing issues in education. Such restrictions will also weaken professional networks.
  • Restrictions on children’s and students’ participation. Student parliaments, student ombudspersons, youth and leadership academies, inter-school meetings and other forms of child and student participation often involve travel outside the settlement in which the school is located, requiring students to be accompanied by one or more teachers. Restrictive application of the provisions to such activities could reduce opportunities for children and students to participate in initiatives outside their own school, exchange experience with their peers and develop civic and leadership competences.
  • Adverse impact on small and remote schools. Schools in large cities have significantly easier local access to universities, training organisations, institutions and professional forums. For schools in small and remote settlements, participation in almost any regional or national activity entails travel, a business trip and often an overnight stay. In some schools, staff numbers are too small for it to be efficient to organise separate training, making it necessary to conduct joint training with another school. Article 114 effectively implies that one of the schools would have to participate online, placing its staff at a disadvantage.
  • Risk to contractual and financial commitments already undertaken. Some schools had already planned and paid for professional development activities for their staff before the 2026 State Budget Act entered into force and are now faced with financial losses in respect of amounts paid in advance. At present, school principals are cancelling already planned off-site training sessions scheduled for the beginning of September on a large scale, while hotels and tour operators are refusing to refund the amounts paid.

Repeal of Article 281 of the Pre-school and School Education Act

The repeal of Article 281 of the Pre-school and School Education Act is also a matter of serious concern. Until now, this provision guaranteed that state-budget funds for financing activities within the pre-school and school education system would be planned annually at a level no lower than in the previous year, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product.

The repeal of Article 281 does not automatically mean a reduction in education funding in 2026, but it removes an important statutory safeguard for the sustainability of education financing. Going forward, there will no longer be a legal safeguard preventing funding for pre-school and school education from decreasing both in absolute terms and as a share of GDP. This creates a risk that, in future budgets, education funding may formally increase in nominal terms while in reality declining as a relative share of public resources and failing to keep pace with economic developments, inflation and the rising costs faced by educational institutions.

Based on all of the above, we at Amalipe Center and the “Mission Achiever: Inspired to Succeed” School Network call on the Council of Ministers to propose to the National Assembly amendments to Article 281 and Article 114. In the meantime, we call on the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Finance, as a matter of urgency, to prepare and disseminate uniform written guidelines on the application of Article 114 within the pre-school and school education system, addressing the following questions:

  • Are educational institutions entitled to commission professional development activities from organisations registered in IROPK – the Ministry of Education and Science’s official Information Register of Approved Programmes for Raising the Qualifications of Pedagogical Specialists – irrespective of their legal status? An affirmative answer would be consistent with the official regulatory framework governing professional development and would ensure competition and equal conditions in the labour market for all licensed organisations providing professional development. This would enable educational institutions to carry out their statutory functions related to professional development and appraisal without breaching the applicable regulatory framework.
  • Is it permissible for employees of educational institutions – school principals, teachers, educational mediators and others – to participate in training courses, conferences and seminars organised by external legal entities where the school or kindergarten covers only the participants’ travel and subsistence expenses in accordance with the applicable regulations? This would create conditions for sustainable partnerships, open educational institutions to the civil society sector and encourage the organisation of high-quality conferences, round tables and other forums in the field of education.
  • Do the restrictions under Article 114(2) also apply to funds received by schools and kindergartens under various projects, or only to funds under the Unified Budget Classification? At present, many educational institutions have approved project funding under Programme “Education” and from other donors. Most of these projects provide for professional development activities outside school premises and include dedicated funding for such activities; however, these are not international projects and therefore do not fall within the exception provided for in Article 114(2), item 2.
  • To what extent does Article 114 restrict official travel by school principals, teachers, educational mediators and other staff to other schools, Regional Departments of Education, other institutions and other settlements in the performance of their official duties, including visits by experts from the Regional Departments of Education to educational institutions and vice versa? Although the wording of Article 114 does not address this issue and does not prohibit travel and subsistence expenses for visits to other schools and settlements, the concern that has arisen among the Regional Departments of Education and other educational institutions is leading to self-imposed restrictions and uncertainty.

We are convinced that uniform guidelines on the application of Article 114 would provide reassurance to the education system and make it significantly more stable. We are also convinced that the greatest possible degree of freedom for educational institutions is a prerequisite for quality education, and that the autonomy of school principals to make management decisions within the institutions entrusted to them must not be undermined.