PUPILS - POLITICAL HOSTAGES

AIM, PRISHTINA, September 3

SUMMARY:

This is the fifth school year running that elementary and secondary school pupils will attend in private facilities. Although there have been 12 meetings between the Albanian delegation and representatives of the Ministry of Serbia so far, in the framework of the Geneva Conference, in order to solve this problem, no results have been achieved. At the core of the misunderstanding are the teaching plans and curricula, i.e. the competences for their adoption. All these years, before the adoption of the 1990 Constitution, Albanian students studied according to the teaching plans and curricula which were adjusted together with the Serbian Ministry.

That, however, is not the only disputable issue. Under the new Serbian Constitution only 28 percent of Albanian elementary graduates and as much as 117 percent of Serbian pupils, may enrol in secondary schools. The dual policy of the Serbian authorities (vis-a-vis the international community on the one and the domestic public on the other side) that the Albanians are "boycotting" Serbian schools, as they claim, cannot "pass" among the local Albanians. Thus, competitions allegedly for the enrolment of Albanian pupils in secondary schools are at odds with the fact that all the teaching staff of Albanian nationality was fired...

PUPILS - POLITICAL HOSTAGES

This is the fifth consecutive school year that the Albanian students have not been attending instruction in school facilities, after the Government of Serbia brought a decision in 1990 to fire 6,000 teachers Albanians in a single day, signed by Miodrag Djurisic, the then Secretary of the Kosovo Secretariat of Education, Science and Culture. During all these years there were attempts to reach some sort of a compromise, so that within the Geneva Conference negotiations between the Albanian delegation and the Serbian Government were conducted 12 times, without any progress being achieved.

Thus, Fehmi Agani, Vice-President of the Democratic Alliance of Kosovo and the representative of the delegation of Albanians within the Geneva Conference, regarding the normalization of instruction in the Albanian language told journalists that there had been no talks with the Serbian side for quite some time now, since those conducted so far had yielded no results, and that they are not expected to resume soon, but that he doesn't consider them suspended.

However, the Provincial Secretary for Education, Science and Culture of Kosovo, Marinko Bozovic, stated that "for the time being, there will be no agreement with the Albanians as Albanian teachers do not recognize the teaching plans and curricula, nor documents issued with the seal of the Republic of Serbia". In the last talks with UNICEF's special counsellor for education in the former Yugoslavia, Robert Fuderich, mention was also made of the "boycott of state schools by the Albanians", but Serbian ministers did not touch on the essence of the problem at all. And what is actually being offered to the Albanians?

Representatives of the Serbian authorities in Kosovo, as well as in Belgrade point out that, year after year, competitions have been announced for the enrolment of Albanian pupils. However, this is interpreted as an attempt on the part of the Serbian authorities to persuade the world public that the Albanians have a right to education in their mother tongue and that "the only problem is that they themselves do not want to exercise that right". Anyhow, it is absurd to publish competitions for Albanian pupils and instruction in the Albanian language if there is not a single Albanian teacher on the payroll of Serbian schools. On the other hand, the published competitions are unacceptable for the Albanians as they envisage, take the example of the one published in 1992, that only about 9 thousand out of 34 thousand elementary school graduates may enrol in secondary schools, which means that 72 percent of the Albanian children would be deprived of their right to further education. According to that same competition it is envisaged that as much as 117 percent of the Serbian pupils may enrol in secondary schools.

With such a distribution the current Serbian policy counted on possible returnees, i.e. the resettlement of Serbs in Kosovo. This confirms the long standing thesis of the Albanian teaching staff on the great repercussions that education in the Albanian language could have if it remained within Serbian jurisdiction, or if Serbia were to determine the number of schools in Kosovo. Let us remind that the disagreements that have brought about such state of affairs in education in the Albanian language started with the adoption of the new Constitution of Serbia, whereby Albanian students and teachers were requested to accept the new teaching plans and curricula, which were not in conformity with the ethnic and cultural demands of the Albanians.

Most objections were raised precisely in connection with subjects directly relating to the collectivity, such as history, music, literature, even mathematics, where the texts accompanying the problems are not illustrated by national, Albanian names. Precisely for this reason, the Albanian delegation, headed by Fehmi Agani proposed, within the Geneva Conference, that Albanian pupils and teachers be allowed to attend instruction in school facilities in the construction of which they invested their own resources, to be followed by the finding of solutions for the disputable curricula and teaching plans.

However, that was not accepted by the Serbian representatives. That there is no true readiness of the Serbian authorities to solve this most sensitive problem of the Kosovo knot is seen from the opinion of the current Provincial Secretary for Education, Science and Culture, Marinko Bozovic, who said in his most recent talks with directors of secondary schools in Kosovo that "the Albanians do not wish to correct anything in their plans and programmes, although they can draw them up themselves, while the Ministry of Education of Serbia would only harmonize them". He gave the same gathering instructions on how to behave in case of a "invasion" of Albanian pupils, although it was certain that they did not "plan" on something of that sort, as in previous years they always got "the short end of the stick" from the local police.

This, however, did not prevent the police in Kosovo to intervene once again. Thus, both the pupils and teachers "felt" police nightclubs on their backs, especially in Kosovska Mitrovica and Podujevo. According to the competent Albanian representatives, who all these years took part in organizing parallel instruction in the Albanian language, this will certainly be one of the most difficult years for all elementary and secondary school pupils, both in respect of finding a place and funds for instruction.

While Albanian pupils are prohibited to attend instruction in private facilities, almost all secondary schools are half empty, and some secondary schools, such as the one in Djakovica, have been closed because there were not enough pupils for instruction in the Serbian language. So far, a sum of DM 1.6 million has been raised, provided by the Kosovo Government in exile, and the Central Board for the financing of Kosovo has raised DM 5.5 million of which 92 percent will go for the teachers' salaries. Private schools get money from citizens, i.e. parents and workers employed abroad every day.

It is estimated that between DM 25 and 28 million have to be secured for nearly 250 thousand elementary and secondary school pupils and for the salaries of their teachers for this school year. All in all, Albanian children are hostages of the current policy. According to the news in the Serbian press or the statements of the Serbian officials, it turns out that "the Albanian children are hostages of the Albanian parties". The Albanians qualify what is actually happening and what specific data attest to as "a retailored strategy of Serbian authorities, which want to exercise their power in Kosovo at any cost" even at the expense of 300 thousand children and their future. In any case, it remains to be seen where the end to this unending story about the impossibility of finding a solution to instruction in the Albanian language lies.

The unwillingness of the Serbian authorities on the one hand and the refusal of the Albanians to be under Serbian jurisdiction and competences which largely restrict education in the Albanian language, on the other, are sufficient indicators of the complexity of the problem, whose end is difficult to foresee.

Astrit Salihu