The distribution of rapid Covid-19 antigen for schools began, and all state-run schools are expected to have them "by next week," Education Minister, Radovan Fuchs, said on Wednesday.

Fuchs told state radio that a batch of 300,000 tests was sent to schools in the the coastal region of Dalmatia and the nearby islands on Tuesday, and that the ministry would receive “up to one million” of tests on Wednesday, before they are distributed across the rest of the country.

“Testing is voluntary, and de facto works as a way to avoid mandatory self-isolation for pupils who come into contact with infected peers, so that those who are not sick can still attend school,” Fuchs said, adding that parents would have the freedom to say if they would test their children or not.

“There will be no consequences for parents who refuse the testing, or to their children, but that means that when any pupil in a class gets a positive result, or someone from the child’s environment gets sick with Covid, the (untested) child will have to go into isolation,” he said.

According to Fuchs, the self-testing is not a step towards mandatory testing or vaccination of children.

“Slogans, chants, and petitions (that we have seen) saying things like ‘We are not letting them have our children’ are incomprehensible to me, because after two years of the pandemic we are doing our best to allow children to lead normal lives and attend school as normally as possible,” Fuchs said.