Confrontation in Parliament for Kosovo University Number

MP PDK, Nezir Kocaj, at today's session of the Kosovo Assembly has asked Minister of Education Shyqi Bytyqi if there will be only two public universities in Kosovo, since the latter, according to MP Kocaj, has said only two public universities should remain in the country.

He has also asked Minister Bytyqi if there will be student registration in the new academic year.

The concerns of students, academic staff, and citizens are great, as is the time when university records will begin. Linking to these statements, we also have an election process at Prizren University, where members of the Steering Council have been violating both the higher education law and the UPZ statute and the Steering Council. So my question is, how many universities will remain, whether there will be student registration in the new academic year”, Chocaj asked.

While in his response, Education Minister Shyqi Bytyqi stressed that this will be discussed in the Government, where one proposal concerns the profile of all public universities and the second proposes that the profiles become two universities.

We have never declared that there will be only two universities, either in what you call one on the Dukagjin plains and the University of Pristina. We said we were going to form a working group that was done with internal and external experts to make the feasibility of public universities. On the professional report, it can be decided how to access public universities with the goal that quality in public universities be standardized, such as Pristina University. It was an option that only two universities could remain, passing them to other parts to be campuses of these two universities. But now we are much more concrete, we have the final report, and very soon this report will be discussed in the Government where two proposals were proposed, one is about the profile of all public universities and the second for the profiles to be turned into either or two universities”, Bytyqi said.

But with the response of Minister Bytyqi, MP Kocaj was not satisfied, who said he did not get the right answer. Chocaj cited several media reports where the Minister and Ministers of August have declared that only two public universities will remain.