Pristina University without Framework in the Hand of External Co-workers

To see the situation nearest Praportr has talked to three professors who for years have been working as foreign associates at various UPS faculties. They speak of the criteria that have been set by the UPI for accepting regular staff and cast doubt that their refusal has been done with certain purposes, as they in a way have managed to create a rich career outside Kosovo and in specific areas that largely lack regular professors in the UP. After several years of work they left the UP to deal with other jobs.

Data provided by Preportr shows that the UP is largely dependent on foreign collaborators, in some cases even some schools more operate with foreign collaborators than with regular professors. External collaborators are considered valuable for their university experience, but in many cases they are not regular in lectures, counseling, and exercise, because they usually have another full-time job and the UPI pays them little for their work.

Data for the 2017/2018 academic year shows that the number of engaged professors or foreign associates continues to be huge. According to these data, 41 professors at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering are with the status of those engaged, while 32 are regular. At the Faculty of Construction and Architecture 39 professors are engaged, while 41 are regular. At the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports, the number of engaged professors is 21, the number of regular professors. At the Faculty of Arts 78 professors are engaged, while 79 are regular.

Framework Rejection

Gretzen Cakaj is the only Albanian professor to have doctored in the field of satellite communications. He has conducted studies at the Technical Faculty at the University of Pristina, has prepared the work of magistrates near the Radio-Frequency Communications and Engineering Institute at Vienna Technical University and the doctorate at Zagreb University.

As beneficiary of the Fulbright donation, Cakaj has done postdoctoral research in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) in the United States. At NOAAA, which is NASA's sister, he has conducted research on satellite research and rescue applications in case of various air and sea disasters.

Unlike other professors who are struggling with their advances because of a lack of scientific magazine work, Cakaj has no problem at all. He in his CV has 60 works in magazines and scientific conferences, is quoted by many international authors and has been a valuer of satellite systems for international conferences and magazines, including those of the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers (Institute of Electronic and Electronics Engineering I EEE), as the world's best - known institution in the field of publishing from electrotechnics.

My “Publications are realised with co-authors from Pristina University, the Polytechnic University of Tirana, Zagreb University, Vienna Technical University and with those of the US NOAAA”, Cakaj says.

Cakaj, who further continues his commitment as a guest professor by legalizing the subject “satelial systems” for master-level students near the Faculty of Information Technology at the Polytechnic University of Tirana, is author of the book “Local User Terminals for Search and Rescue Satellites” where it presents scientific research conducted in NOAA. He is also the coauthor (as first author) of a material titled: “satellite systems exercise”, which is published under the Faculty of Information Technology at the Polytechnic University of Tirana.

On the reference page for scientific publication “Scopus”, which also refers to the University of Pristina for academic advancements, includes 27 publications, evidently more than regular professors at the Faculty of Computer and Electrical Engineering in Pristina.

But despite all this scientific luggage, Cakaj failed to become a regular UP professor, nor to continue his work as an outside associate because in 2017 at FIEK he had announced that the satellite communications class will hold another professor who is in regular working relations. Cakaj says the professor who will now legalise his course has no professional preparation in that field, while he says he is willing to keep this subject even free of charge just to prepare students as best as possible.

Mentor Agan, who has worked as an external associate at the Faculty of Philosophy for several years (2003-2016), has also stopped working as an outside associate at the Department of Sociology. It shows that over several years it has been heavily loaded, carrying up to nine subjects within an academic year.

The shipment was too big, but I had that will to keep all those subjects. It was very difficult because it was done over 1,000 tests within a deadline and it needed a huge job”, he says.

He says that he has quit this job because prepared cadres are ignored in the UPI, especially those who have completed their schooling abroad.

The “those who have some of the schooling abroad need to open the doors, but here it is, when someone prepared comes, they see it as a danger. There are other things, you have to be dogmatic enough to fit in, there's not a lot of commitment, I'm not saying there's nothing, but there's not a lot of commitment to scientific truth. The thought is fairly dogmatic, and now if you're inclined towards free thinking, you're at once dangerous and that could be one of the reasons for closing”, Agan said.

He says he has not been accepted as a regular professor because of a lack of scientific magazine work, but says he has published works on books that are not appreciated, because works in books are not valued as a scientific contribution by the UP.

When I doctored, I'd been over this limit for 50 years, and then it was a question that I was told there could be a solution, but I have to have scientific work. I've sent them scientific works, those are books that have gone abroad made mostly with universities in Switzerland. I'm taking one as an illustration: it's been a book published by Switzerland's University of Friburg by the “Peter Lang”, which is multinational and is in America, England, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and so on. The book is entitled “20 Years After the Colors of Communication”, Agani stressed.

He has addressed postcommunism experience in Kosovo, and says the reactor has told him that works in books are not recognised as a scientific contribution to advancedness and that they should be published only in magazines.

I think the books are higher than the magazines, but these (rectorates) have decided not to recognize”, says Agan.

Mentor Agani has conducted a part of US schooling, while doctoring in Kosovo on theories on nation and nationalism.

The fate of Cakay and Agan is shared by professor of the Faculty of Anarchy Ilir Ginorl. He has been engaged as an assistant since 1988 and then as a legalist at this faculty. From 2004 he works as an engaged professor. He has very rich professional CV. Under the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning, in 2006 the drafting of Kosovo's space plan has been made.

I defended my doctorate in Graz, Austria, in 2016, and this has in a way opened the way for my professor to advance, but the competition came at the end of 2016, but then in June 2016 a recommendation was approved on the UPP for a scientific paper to be listed in dates published on the Up. I haven't personally considered this job very serious, because I probably haven't been late, but for this competition I haven't reached the deadline, even though such work has been published two months after the competition deadline is closed and a consensus has not been found for that publication to be taken into account as part of the” competition, Djindol says.

He has not been recognized as a scientific contribution to hire as a regular professor at the Faculty of Architecture. Gynel says this book is the result of the antix0> Kosovar Modernism exhibition ʹ A Abetar of Architecture”, which was held at the National Gallery as part of the programme in which they competed for this exhibition in 2015.

The same exhibition is held in Zagreb at the Museum of Archaeology and Arts and at Vienna Technical University. It is meant to be held in Skopje too”, he adds.

Minimum Pay for External Workers

Pristina University largely depends on the work of foreign collaborators. But unlike regular professors, foreign collaborators pay little.

Mentor Agan relates that despite his hard work, his salary has been very small.

“A semester has been 104 euros, in the next 208 euro semester, when it lifts taxes there are not even 100 euros a month. So I wasn't paid all year, but only on semesters. When I looked at all the money all year long and divided it by 12, the amount was less than 100 euros a month”, former Professor Agan stressed.

The work of paying has not been very important for the other two professors, since their will is too great to work with students. Ilir Gjinorl says that as an external associate, a job that still continues, the salary is very small and has not worked for wages, but for all these years continues to do it by the will to contribute to the faculty for students and reform studies.

Age

The age criteria for advanced to regular professors is one of the criteria that has presented problems for many faculties. At the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, where more than half of the staff are outside collaborators, the age criterion further hinders work.

Even in Kosovo's market we don't have people, and if we also impose age restrictions then more criteria” are harder, says the dean of this Enver Hamiti faculty.

As a result of a shortage of quartels at the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Electronics, considered to be a major department of the faculty, is threatened with the closure.

Dean Enver Hamiti says this department is in danger of closing because currently by three educators who are in regular working relations, two will retire this year and the third retire in 2019, when it needs to be started with new accreditation.

This means that we're not going to have any teachers in the next period of electrotenergeic accreditment, which is very difficult, and it's one of the biggest failures that is written to us, even as a management, as a faculty, as a university and as a society”, Hamiti says.

Although he considers the age criterion to be discriminated against, Dukagjin Pupovci, an expert in the field of education, says, however, not everyone turning 50 should be elected professor. Here, according to him, there must be criteria.

A few years ago, however, there was a court ruling with which the age limit for becoming a professor at the UPI was lifted. According to the Court's decision, the article of the UP's statute that determines age is unconstitutional, incompatible with the Labour Law and human rights.

In UP, they say that this age court ruling has to do with a case in 2010 when this right was limited to the statute's provisions - that is, the age limit was not rating the 2004-2012 statute.

“While adopting the new statute in 2012, this restriction of age to 50 has been rated in the statute, so we are obliged to respect it as such, says Esat Kelmendi, secretary of the UP.

For UP's professor, Arben Hajrullahu, age should not be defining the contract's connection as a regular MP staff.

“Primar should be what he can offer UP's candidate/interview. More flexibility as well as innovative form of contracts could be the solution. We as a country generally have very few real scientists and experts from all fields to bypass them, or to make it impossible for us to make potential commitment even at the” university, he says.

The Consequences of Professors

Considering that engaged professors, or foreign associates, as they are commonly called, have a regular job, that means that work is their priority and teaching is secondary. This affects their participation in speeches and the quality of teaching in general.

Even Dean Enver Hamiti accepts this. He says the large number of engaged professors creates problems because each year the competition should be opened and the same people's assessment made.

Their commitment led to other problems during the academic year, because they have another primary job elsewhere and there are primary obligations that they can't postpone, then trouble arises in the process of realising learning, consultation, exams, and further”, Hamiti says.

In certain situations, according to Pupovci, the commitment of foreign collaborators can also be a priority, providing students with practical experience that very often lacks those who are designed for academic careers.

However, to us, in many cases, professors who work full - time at another university are engaged as foreign collaborators and who really cannot devote the right time to additional work duties. Let's not talk about the army of ministers, deputies, councilors and other political officials who often aim at engagement as foreign collaborators at any university without meeting the basic academic criteria”, he says.

Pupovci mentions other categories of politicians who seize the opportunity to engage as foreign collaborators and in a short time send their assistants to keep learning.

Unless the balance of staff engaged with permanentity is maintained, according to Professor Hajrullahu, the quality of studies will also suffer.

“Studies programmes should not be possible to be implemented mainly with engaged staff or staff that is not competent to offer them. If that happens, then the quality of the studies will still suffer, he says.

In the UPP, they are aware of the consequences that could result in such a great commitment to the irregular staff. But that, they say, is happening for some reason, but the main ones are three: Lack of needed budgets, lack of full rate as a condition for accepting new personnel for specific positions, and in many cases lack of adequate frameworks that meet conditions according to the statute (aging, scientific works, academic experience at least three years, etc. )

The biggest problem we're facing is the fact that most personnel engaged as foreign collaborators have at least one job elsewhere or are engaged in certain universities or colleges, and of course this undermines the quality or commitment to fully engage in the duties and responsibilities assigned to them under the contract. Pristina University has no way of preventing these phenomena unless they are stopped by decision-making institutions at the state level of”, Kelmendi says.

At Pristina University this year, the competition for engagement of foreign collaborators has been announced for lectures and exercises for nearly 430 positions.

Source Layer: Preport