The new academic school year entered under a set of security measures for many universities in North Macedonia. Private universities opened the doors to their students some days ago, while public ones were not prepared, as they have yet to compile a security protocol to avoid the spread of the virus.

The Dean of the Mathematics department, Aleksandar Skeparovski, said that a combination of online and physical attendance has been successful so far, hence the plan is to apply it this year as well.

“We decided to have a combination between physical attendance and online classes. We did this to preserve the quality of the lectures, as well as everybody’s wellbeing”, said Skeparovski.

Students that have already enrolled say that they are against online classes, as “nothing substitutes physical contact with the teachers”.

“It is better if we’re all here and discuss the course because it’s not really efficient from home”, said a student we spoke to.

“Of course, the new rules in class will be challenging, but we’ll adapt to it. Naturally, we would want to go back to classes”, said another student.

“I think being in class cannot be compared with any other method of learning”, said another student we spoke to.

The way classes will be taught will depend on the capacity that each faculty has, while North Macedonia has not made it mandatory to be vaccinated in order to attend school.