By Linda Karadaku for Southeast European Times in Pristina – 14/11/11
This school year in Kosovo started without teacher protests, but with many demands from the Education Trade Union. [Reuters]
One of the main issues for Kosovo education remains school infrastructure. While authorities promised to do more, one parent group took the matter into their own hands and completely renovated an elementary school in Decan, western Kosovo.
Following a request by teacher Fatmire Gjikokaj, parents renovated the Lidhja e Prizrenit school. "All agreed to my request and here it is; now the class is all fine," Gjikokaj told Kosovo media.
Her class and eight others of the only elementary school in Decan were renovated by the parents, Kosovo daily Express reported. School director Fahri Lokaj said the whole event started with an initiative that followed a memorandum signed with USAID in July.
"USAID took note of how serious we are and decided to form a sample class as a model, in co-operation with the community, [to show] an exemplary class for modern-day teaching," Lokaj told Express.
About 430,000 students started the new school year in 1,151 elementary and secondary schools, along with some 23,000 teachers.
The High Commission of the Kosovo Ministry of Education first inspected all schools to ensure proper classrooms and other school grounds, along with a sufficient number of teachers.
The school year in the Serb-majority areas started with the programme of the Republic of Serbia, the Kosovo Ministry of Education told SETimes.
And for once, the year began smoothly.
"This is the first school year that started without protests and trade union demands, as the teachers were treated with dignity because the government increased their salaries," Education Ministry spokeswoman Besa Bytyci told SETimes.
But Ali Shabanaj, head of the Education Trade Union, notes that raises were not issued in January and February this year for the pre-university education [teachers]. "I think the promises of Minister [Rame] Buja will be realised by the end of this year," Shabanaj told SETimes.
Early in the school year, the union made many demands, such as signing a collective contract between the ministry and the union after the bill on pre-university education was approved by parliament.
Shabanaj explained that since the bill was not approved earlier, it had posed a legal obstacle. "That has been overcome and now," she said.
The union, however, wants more, including negotiations over the inflation index in order to preserve actual salaries. Shabanaj said the union submitted its demands to the ministry.
The union says that improving the financial situation for teachers and educational staff "is a determining factor for success and quality". "Increased financing in education will ensure a more positive performance; there will be higher professionalism in general," Shabanaj says.
The ministry agrees. "We expect better quality for a number of reasons. The bill on pre-university education was approved, as was the Strategy for Education and the Framework for the Curriculum for pre-university education. We are searching for donors to develop the digitalised educational process," Bytyci says.
Buja acknowledges that teaching is conducted in several shifts in hundreds of Kosovo schools. In about 134 schools, teaching is done in one shift; in 542 schools in two shifts, and there are 36 schools that have three shifts," he said at a press conference on the first day of school.
Source: SETimes.com
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