Problems with Education

AIM Skopje, 21 January, 1998

Somehow at the same time when the Macedonian representative in Paris was putting his signature on the planetary pledge on abstention from cloning of human beings, the public in Macedonia was informed that the government in Skopje has decided to clone a whole faculty. It is no joke. As part of Kiril and Metodij University, a Teachers' College (former academy) has operated for years where young people are acquiring qualifications to be teachers, but soon a completely the same one will be constituted, that is, in the same building, with the same curriculae, mostly with the same professors, and, of course, for the same students. This only at first sight absurd decision is justified in the official government documents by the fact that the existing Teachers' College, according to the criteria of the competent ministry, does not meet its public duty. First of all and more than anything else, this implies obstruction of certain earlier government documents and legal projects, which is practiced by the current faculty management and the dean personally.

In the past period the mentioned university institution has been the subject of frequent, and probably intentional inspections from a few relevant ministries, including those for financing and labour, and a considerable number of irregularities were established in regulations, but these are believed to be just side-effects of the essential conflict between the Teachers' College and the ministry of education, or on a higher level - the University and the regime.

Those even superficially informed about political processes in Macedonia will with no difficutly realize that in the background of this conflict is the so-called "language dispute", indeed, the problem of education of young Albanians in their mother tongue.

College administration, supported by majority of the managing elite of the University, does not conceal reservations concerning the rights of the Albanians to be educated in their own language at the University. Macedonian Constitution, according to the way in they understand it, permits education in minority languages only up to secondary school level, and therefore, bans university studies. Even if this questionable implementation of a negative definition in the Constitution which does not say so explicitly is disregarded, the question remains open how to assert the constitutional right to education at the first two levels if cadres who would carry out that education are not provided. There remains the bitter taste of the fact that the Macedonian authorities have for a long time not been able to solve this problem, and that only after things had started getting out of hand and when in Tetovo suburb called Mala Recica the parallel university in Albanian was established, the legitimity of which is still not recognized by the authorities, these same authorities have taken more resolute and efficacious steps in the direction of improvement of the obvious disproportion of political ambitions and humble infrastructure for satisfying them.

In order to crush the resistance at the University, Macedonian government drafted and the parliament adopted the law on the teachers' college. Although it is a typical "Lex Specialis" and although it has come quite late, this law was expected to at least partially release the tensions in education. However, quite the contrary happened. The new law provoked a gush of rage among the Macedonian youth and the shameful spring demonstrations of university and secondary school students followed, including even hunger strike just in order to deny young people of the other nationality the fundamental right to education. Some facts lead to a conclusion that these demionstrations were not authentic, but designed and led by nationalistic professors who had always opposed broadening any rights of ethnic Albanians.

Mostly these same forces at the Teachers' College, obviously supported by the administration and the Senate of the University, and according to certain indications by the lower staff of the competent ministry, continued to obstruct the preparation of the said law, so that the future teachers-Albanians, despite the political will of the authorities, were not given conditions for studying in their mother tongue. That is when the government lost patience. The first thing that is evident is that the executive authorities did not resort to the expected repressive measures, for which it deserves compliments regardless of whether it acted like this because of the international and the domestic public, that is, because of its political image or tactical reasons concerning possible reactions. In any case, the government did not wish to jeopardise the autonomy of the University and used its legal right to establish new faculties, and decided as it decided. It did not "abolish" the stubborn and disobedient dean, which at first signt might have seemed more efficient, but sentenced his faculty to slow withering away. It is assumed that the "old" Teachers' College will not be able to survive, since the operation of the newly established one will be financed from the budget. Although the "old" administration of the faculty had full support of the leadership of the University in the political sphere, and although certain circles believe that they were even manipulated by this very leadership, it is not realistic to expect that such political support could develop into economic one. The faculty could survive only if other members of the University would, with solidarity, allocate a part of their own meagre resources. But, who knows? Even much worse things have happened in this space to spite others.

What slightly surprises, but it seems even causes concern among a part of the public, is a comparatively long silence of University management concerning the government decision.

It is true that the controversial dean, Nikola Petrov, has just submitted resignation, that is, decided of his own free will to "abolish" himself, but from the manner in which he explained it, one could not draw a conclusion that controversies concerning this will be simply resolved. He explained his resignation by the wish to save the faculty of euthanasia, but this is at this moment completely irrelevant, since the government will in one way or the other carry out its decision and in the end implement the law on education of young Albanians. By accusing the government that for the sake of politics it is pushing eduucation and upbringing to the margins, Petrov is just recycling the thesis that the right to education and upbringing in the Macedonian state belongs only to the Macedonians, and as for the others, only to the extent the Macedonians determine. This is the essence of the controvery of the nationalistic intellectual elite which has proclaimed itself the protector of the Constitution and national interests on the one hand, and the government on the other which, regardless of wherether its motives were authentic or whether it was forced to do it by the international community and the current political partnership, even at the cost of making wrong moves, is trying to find a compromise between the existing conditions and the set goals, between reality which is slowly becoming too narrow, and norms. Slight anxiousness is caused in the public by the fact that in the mentioned controversy, the University elite, probably not without political support of the nationalistic opposition, manipulated the youth and took them out to compromising demonstrations. Silence at the University warns that last year's marching of nationalism could have a radical re-run, since the political moment, in view of the election year, is even more delicate.

AIM Skopje

BUDO VUKOBRAT