Under some NPP measures, as of the next school year all elementary school pupils will receive textbooks for free. Given that secondary school education will soon become mandatory, free textbooks will also be distributed to first graders.
As of 2007, maternity allowances will depend for the first time on basic budget rate, which is 3.326 kuna, so that the lowest allowance will equal 50 percent of the basic rate, or 1,663 kuna. The one-time allowance for newborn babies will increase to 1,360 kuna. The projected 2007 budget envisages 240 million kuna more for maternity allowances than this year, and 200 million more for child allowances.
The national population policy envisages numerous other measures to help families, such as tax benefits, more flexible working hours, health care and other measures, the government's officials said last week presenting the NPP.
After today's GSV session, Deputy Prime Minister and Family Affairs Minister Jadranka Kosor said she expected the national parliament to unanimously support the said measures.
She described the population policy as a political, national, economic and strategic issue of primary importance.
She said the measures were not only social ones and that they had already produced results in other countries that also had faced negative birth rates.
GSV chairman Kresimir Sever, who is the unionist representative, said the population policy is a long-standing issue and cannot be the business of one political party or one government but the matter of concern of all Croatian citizens.
The editorial in the latest issue of the Croatian Catholic weekly 'Glas Koncila' says the draft is incomplete and fails to address what it calls the gravity of the national demographic crisis.