Stock image. (source: SITA)
Schools are warning they may have to close their doors to students in winter after a more than 300 percent rise in their energy bills.
Although energy price hikes have been talked about for much of this year, some schools have said they were horrified when they recently received invoices for gas supplies ahead of the new school year.
P. Kellner Elementary School in Rimavská Sobota, southern Slovakia, is gas-heated. According to its latest invoice, instead of paying €1,321 a month, it will pay €5,980 - a rise of 352 percent.
"I've never seen anything like this. I only vaguely remember from my student days when during socialism schools were closed due to the energy crisis and coal holidays were announced. This is what awaits us," said school director Anita Antalová.
A similar hike in electricity bills is expected.
In Rimavská Sobota, there are three more elementary schools, some of which will probably have to close in the winter.
"We would leave only one or two buildings open, the rest would not have to be heated. We would teach in shifts - younger classes or one school in the morning, older or another in the afternoon," Mayor Jozef Šimko said.
The energy crisis is expected to be the most serious problems schools, hospitals, social service centers, offices, and ordinary households have faced in decades, and they are hoping for massive state support to meet payments.
"How much money will be allocated to address the rise of energy prices is currently impossible to say," the Finance Ministry has said. Prime Minister Eduard Heger has admitted the coming months will be very hard.
"Autumn and spring will be so difficult that the pandemic will look like a walk in the park," he says. "The energy crisis caused by Vladimir Putin makes it difficult to prevent enormous costs. We are preparing plans to support citizens."
Holidays in the winter, classes in the summer?
Rimavská Sobota authorities will have to find an additional €300,000 just to heat schools, kindergartens and municipal buildings. The town is already trying to save money by leaving only every other streetlamp lit.
