Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Paid Educational Leave Convention, 1974 (No. 140) - North Macedonia (Ratification: 1991)

Formulation and application of a policy designed to promote the granting of paid educational leave. The Committee notes the Government’s first report on the application of the Convention received in October 2009. It notes that the provisions of the Labour Relations Law, the Collective Agreement for the Public Sector and the Collective Agreement for the Private Sector recognize that, for the purposes of paid educational leave, educational activities should take place during working hours and educational leave is compensated with wages. The Committee invites the Government to supply in its next report any texts (Government’s statements, etc.) by which a policy to promote the granting of paid educational leave has been formulated (Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention). Please indicate how this policy is coordinated with general policies on employment, education and training, and hours of work (Article 4). It further requests the Government to specify the conditions to be fulfilled by workers in the private and public sectors to be granted educational leave for the purposes of the Convention (Article 10). Please also give a general appreciation of the manner in which the Convention is applied, by providing, for example, extracts from reports, studies and inquiries, and statistics on the number of workers, disaggregated by sectors of activity, granted paid educational leave (Part V of the report form).

Article 6. Participation of the social partners. Please describe the manner in which employers’ and workers’ organizations are associated with the formulation and application of the policy for the promotion of paid educational leave.

Article 7. Financial arrangements. Please indicate how the arrangements for paid educational leave are financed, whether by the employer alone or jointly with other bodies or institutions.

Article 9. Particular categories of workers. In its 2011 direct request on the Employment Policy Convention, 1964 (No. 122), the Committee noted that SMEs represented 99.6 per cent of the total number of business entities and employed 78 per cent of workers in the country. The Committee invites the Government to indicate in its next report on Convention No. 140 whether any special provisions have been established for particular categories of workers (such as workers in small undertakings, rural or other workers residing in isolated areas, shift workers or workers with family responsibilities), or for workers in particular categories of undertakings (such as small or seasonal undertakings) who find it difficult to fit into general arrangements.