Starting on Saturday, students of pre-higher education institutions in Moldova will benefit from a 10-day holiday for Easter. On April 17 students are expected to be back to school. The Easter vacation was introduced 2 years ago. According to sources within the General Municipal Division for Education, Science, Youth and Sports, all the extracurricular institutions will operate as usual. The police warned about a potential increase in the number of injured children and teenagers during the holiday, but the teaching staff is less worried because students usually spend the Easter vacation with their family. The Easter holiday and the 5-day school week, introduced in 1999, shortened the school year and consequently the holidays. The first spring holiday – from March 5 to 11 – was not shortened. Instead, the winter holiday this year lasted only until January 8, which is a week shorter compared with the previous years, when the winter holiday lasted 3 weeks, as against 2 weeks this year. Representatives of the Ministry of Education and Youth told Info-Prim Neo that Moldova’s educational system has the longest holidays. There are about 96,000 students in Chisinau municipality.