A lack of number and quality of academic quartet

Public universities and private colleges in Kosovo lack academic frameworks as a number, but as qualities, representatives of education organisations and education experts say.

Kosovo Statistics Agency data for 2018/2019 shows that the number of academic and administrative staff at public universities in Kosovo is about 2,300, while the number of students is over 68 thousand students.

According to the same KSF data in Kosovo's 14 private colleges alone, the number of academic and administrative staff was 2339, The data for another 9 private colleges is missing. The number of students in private colleges is over 360,000 students.

Education affairs expert Dukagjin Pupovci tells Radio Free Europe that there is a shortage of kudros as well as a number of qualities in public and private universities.

“If students are seen teaching parts two years ago, the University of Pristina has been 1 teacher for 53 students, while other universities in the region have been in even worse position to show that the number of teachers themselves has been insufficient.”

“Messaary at public universities has been 1 teacher for 60 students, while in private colleges there has been 1 teacher for 27 students. These are data from 2017, but this situation may have changed for the better now, but it hasn't been able to change much”, Pupovci says.

In Kosovo, legal provisions predict that every year, institutions of higher education should declare their teaching staff. Those legal provisions predict that there must be a science doctor for every 60 loans he has a certain research program. For example, if it's 180 loans a three-year program, there must be three doctors in the assigned field.

Youth Qehaja, director at the Institute for Education Studies “EdGard”, tells Radio Free Europe that the evil is that securing quality in higher education in Kosovo has only been defined in completing the number of doctors, so in a quantum respect, but lacking quality in teaching.

Kosovo's “The lack of frameworks is more in professional preparation than in their certificates, so many higher education athletes somehow meet the criteria of three science doctors, but what is controversial is the quality in teaching and quality of these professors. So there is a teaching that is appropriate and adequate for the job market. The labour market has proved to us that university schooling does not prepare students for the work market”, says Qehaja.

Meanwhile, education expert Dukagjin Pupuvci adds that the biggest problem in the higher education system is the structure of academic staff.

According to him, about 60 percent of Kosovo students study social and human science, which means they do not need laboratory equipment, but only quality books and teaching.

It's a question of how many qualified people are to offer qualities in those countries where they work, as we know that in recent years the acceptance of academic staff without rigorous academic criteria has been made, especially this has happened at regional university and colleges. People with doctors from several Balkan private universities who have now taken their seats have arrived. I allow the possibility that among them there will be very good, but in general those institutions where those titles are taken are quite problematic and this raises concern for academic quotas that have our own higher education institutions”, says Pupovci.

The education sector in Kosovo has been facing major problems for years and, as a result, with unhappy qualities.

Finally, the Kosovo Agency for Accreditation had not accredited three public universities and some private colleges. These private universities and colleges had received numerous remarks from international experts.

They had not met a significant number of standards required: such as staff, vision, quality, strategy and other elements.