SCHOOL SYSTEM OF KOSOVO ALBANIANS

AIM Prishtina, January 3, 1996

The Albanian part of the school system in Kosovo, since suspension of its autonomy in July 1990, operates in very difficult conditions as a "parallel" system separated from the state, and it is maintained solely thanks to self-organization and self-financing. According to data collected in 1995, the Albanian school system is formed of 185 classes of pre-school education with 5,291 pupils, 418 classes of elementary (eight-year) schools with about 312 thousand students, 65 secondary schools with 56,920 students, 2 special schools for handicapped children with a few hundred students, as well as 20 faculties and colleges with about 12,200 students. About 20 thousand teachers, lecturers, professors and administrative and maintenance personnel are engaged in education of Albanian pupils and students. Several educational and pedagogical institutions also operate within the parallel system, the Institute which is in charge of publishing textbooks, and professional associations and trade unions of teachers.

Since 1991, the Serb regime prevented normal operation of secondary schools and the University in Albanian language. The Albanian students cannot use their former school facilities and equipment, so the teaching process takes place in alternative premises, mostly in privately-owned houses. According to data collected by the Educational Institute of Kosovo (the parallel institution, of course), for the purpose of secondary-school education in 1994, for example, private persons enabled use of 204 facilities (houses, reconstructed garages, store-rooms, etc.) with the total of 533 rooms, and total area of 11,621 sq. metres. The University also operates in privately-owned and reconstructed facilities which are often far from each other and inadequate for teaching. The Serb regime made a concession concerning most of elementary schools, enabling them to continue working in their buildings. Nevertheless, these schools also form a part of the parallel system. The state of Serbia has absolutely no financial obligations, nor does it take care of equipment, maintenance and heating of facilities in which the teaching process in Albanian takes place.

Although the parallel Albanian school system is being tolerated on the whole, selective police repression is exerted all the time: school principles and teachers are arrested and abused, they are deprived of school documentation, teaching is interrupted etc.

In order to maintain the parallel school system, comparatively large financial means are necessary, which are collected from the so-called parallel monthly self-contribution of 3 % in Kosovo and among Albanian workers employed in countries of the West. Kosovo Government in exile formed a national fund, while in Kosovo, Financing Committee is in charge of collecting funds. The Government and the Financing Committee cover main expenses of financing the parallel school system. According to unofficial data, the Government provides about 30 % of the necessary resources, and the rest is covered from Kosovo sources. However, precise data about real costs of maintaining a parallel school system have never been made public. The only thing that has been made known is that great difficulties have occasionally occurred in providing resources for salaries of teachers and covering other expenses. For instance, salaries of the teachers are sometimes three and more months late. According to a rough estimate, if an average teacher's salary is limited to the minimum of 1200 US dollars a year, and if other expenses are included, the minimum annual budget of the parallel school system in Kosovo should amount to 45 to 50 million US dollars, but it is presumed that only somewhat less than a half of this figure is actually collected, 20 to 25 million US dollars. That is why salaries are delayed for a few months at a time, and why additional campaigns for raising donations for the schools have to be organized.

Apart from organizational difficulties and operation in irregular and extraordinary circumstances, the Albanian school system is also faced with the problem of adapting to big social changes which occurred after the collapse of socialism. A big portion of the curriculae and textbooks have suddenly become obsolete and useless. But, the job of correcting and adapting them to the new requirements is time-consuming. Introduction of corrections is neither easy, nor quick and unresistance. There is also inertia of relations inherited from the former social system, and resistance of teachers who fear becoming surplus manpower. On the other hand, older teachers who have no choice of possibilities are firmly linked to the present school system, and they are inclined towards conservatism rather than changes. Schools are not attractive for young people, both due to low and insecure pay, but also due to conditions of work. It is evident that quite a significant number of young and promising personnel are leaving the Prishtina university. Some of them are leaving to Western countries, and the others are turning to private business in Kosovo.

In present, irregular circumstances, inherited weaknesses of the Albanian school system are also becoming prominent. This is especially obvious in the work of the university which was established in 1970 in a hurry and with no necessary preparations and application of strict criteria of personnel selection. Many semi-competent or incompetent people became university professors at the time. These same incompetent people are now using the present irregular circumstances to promote mediocrity and strengthen their own positions.

There are other objective and subjective difficulties in the operation of the Albanian school system, such as, for example, the appearance of "normative voluntarism" of centres of power which control the Albanian political space in Kosovo, a comeback of party directives in personnel policy and similar. Conflicts between different groups within the Albanian school system sometimes lead to irrational behavior, such as publishing of parallel "History" and "Ancient Albanian Literature" textbooks. Discontent, grumbling, but open protests too were provoked by last summer's decision of the Albnian educational authorities to replace almost all principals of elementary and secondary schools, by a decree and without consulting the schools. There were complaints from the schools that these decisions were quite arbitrary and that some highly competent principals were discharged in the process, who deserve the merit for maintaining the schools and who have shouldered all the burden, but now favourites of new leaders are taking their place, whose capabilities were not verified either as teachers or as managers. Educational authorities replied that the system has changed and that there was no self-management anymore.

Conflicts also broke out at the Albanian university because of distribution of power after the new statute had been adopted, which offers broad authoritarian power to its head, and limits the autonomy of the faculties. This conflict has remained latent, and due to irregular circumstances in which the university operates, it is concealed or kept low.

Nevertheless, despite all these publicly expressed weaknesses, the Albanian school system is the greatest, best organized and most significant segment of the parallel Albanian life in Kosovo. Repression and hard conditions of work have not essentially damaged operation on the whole. Quality of teaching has certainly decreased, and in certain segments, such as medical studies, for instance, it cannot be supported by anyone who even pretends to be rational. And yet, the Albanian school system has succeeded in maintaining and actually significantly improving the function of socialization of generations of pupils and students who have experienced a series of enormous political and social shocks. Namely, for pupils and students, this several-years' long experience with such schooling which is the result of repression (children in lower grades in fact do not even know what "normal school" is) must have become a specific life school of resistance, where quality of acquired knowledge is not as significant as accelerated maturing of personalituy and walking upright, in other words, as constant defence of dignity and threatened national and human values. Although there have been no precise investigations in this sense, these will not be, as some say, "lost generations". On the contrary, one can often hear that these very generations of pride and defiance will quickly return the debt to Serbia which has made their youth bitter.

After the Dayton agreement and announcements that the issue of Kosovo will soon be on the agenda of various international institutions, there are indications that talks on the status of the Albanian school system in Kosovo might be initiated again. Rumours have it that Serbia is now ready to make significant concessions and enable normal operation of Albanian schools and university. In 1992 and 1993, under the auspices of Geneva peace conference, talks were organized between the Serb authorities and the Albanians, and for a moment they even got close to a compromising solution, although just a temporary one, but in June 1993 these talks were interrupted because Serbia refused to accept the presence of a third party in the talks. At the time, just like today, the Albanian school system had an enormous symbolic value for future definition of the political status of Kosovo. Without an agreement about the political status one can hardly expect an agreement about normalization of operation of the Albanian school system.

But, since an increase of pressure is expected to be exerted by foreign factors in order to accelerate initiation of the Albanian-Serb dialogue, perhaps the issue of the Albanian schools concerning which a large progress in negotiations was once already achieved, may serve both parties as the first step in reestablishment of good will. This would also be a sign that good will exists to find a radical compromising solution for the status of Kosovo in general. If no agreement is reached about schools, it can be expected that the Albanian-Serb dialogue will be difficult and long, with an uncertain outcome.

Skellzen Maliqi AIM Prishtina