Unicef oct 2000

UNICEF : The situation Of Schools In October 2000

Source : Aferdita Spahiu (Education Unit - Unicef - Prishtina)

Decentralization process

Since last december, the situation for schools in Kosovo has greatly improved, but much remains to be done. Changes will be implemented in the education system, after the municipal elections. Newly elected municiplality leaders are expected to take a more proactive role in primary and secondary education (ideas, suggestions, projects...); UNICEF has five field offices in each of the regions and each of them is dealing with education issues, apart from other issues, on the municipal level.

Curriculum development

One of the main roles of UNICEF right now is to technically assist UNMIK as an advisor for designing and developing a new curriculum for Kosovo schools. This will probably take a long time but now the process has started.
UNICEF has selected a group of 10 people from Kosovo, who will be in charge of
designing a framework for the new curriculum
work on syllabus development, involving experts in specific areas.
Criteria for selecting members of the group :
Representative of education community, teachers
Ability to speak foreign languages
Awareness of technology
No date has been fixed yet for the deliverables to be produced : their first assignment will be to establish a schedule for their work.
One of their first activities will be to go to Geneva, where they will be trained in curriculum development and related technologies.
A proposal has been made to use experts of the EducWeb network in setting up a seminar on emerging learning technologies. UNICEF, the curriculum development group and experts from Universities and Education organization in democratic countries could meet and examine the possibilities to use technology and an international network of schools and universities to help set-up the new education system in Kosovo.

Teachers

There are currently over 20,000 teachers + school staff in Kosovo. Most of them have signed a contract with UNMIK and receive now a salary (240 to 290 DM per month).
Around 1,000 staff did not sign the contract : most Serb teachers are still teaching the previous Serb curriculum and receive their salary from Belgrade. Some teachers who were over 65 years old had to quit teaching – since there is no retirement program in Kosovo this is a problem that still has to be solved. A few teachers who did not have the minimum qualification were not allowed to sign the UNMIK contract, but they have been enrolled in a one-year teacher training program.

Students

Estimates for current student population :
400,000 Albanian
20,000 Serbian
6,000 Bosnia
1,500 Turkish
1,000 Ashkalia (romas)
70 Croats

Textbooks

Students receive textbooks for free, whenever possible in their own language;
Albanian textbooks previously used by the "clandestine" schools have been re-printed, after a rapid review to eliminate offensive parts (especially history books). The re-print and free distribution was made possible through a consortium of private and public donors including UNICEF, the Soros foundation, the governments of Switzerland, Austria, Canada, and USA, the government of Barcelona and a few others;
The situation is OK for Bosniac and Croat textbooks; some problems still exist for Turkish textbooks in secondary schools but the situation is improving;
Problems exist for textbooks in Serb : the process of reviewing Serbian textbooks to remove offensive parts is still not yet completed. Most if not all of them are using the Belgrade curriculum. Optimists expect that things might change after the new government takes power in Belgrade, and that some Serb teachers will sign the contract with UNMIK.

School buildings

Last year the priority had been rehabilitation i.e. repairing schools that had been only partially damaged in order to make them functional (emergency repair). That program is close to over now, but there is still a lot to do, especially in the domain of sanitary infrastructure. A new phase that begins now will focus on the reconstruction of 30 schools that had been completely destroyed. That phase is mainly financed through a donation from the Japanese government.

Pilot project for interactive learning

UNICEF is starting a project to select 35 schools (one in each municipality, plus 5 additional schools) and help them implement interactive learning methodologies. The schools will receive special assistance from UNICEF, including teachers training in interactive training and equipment like computer labs, furniture, photocopy machines,...
In a first phase, 10 schools will be selected to start the program. The criteria that have been used for selecting these schools are :
Urban area
Mixed cultural environment
High number of students
After they have started to implement interactive methodologies, these "pilot" schools will become models for other schools in their area and will help them go through the same process.