Professional schools face lack of budget, curriculum, and text

So it was said at the table organised by the Vetevendosje Movement, where the theme was “Professional schooling in Kosovo.

Youth Qehaja from the EdGard Institute said concern for schooling and professional skills remains the lack of curriculum and textbooks, and the association of schools with the labour market.

Qehaja confirmed that even the budget shows education is not primary in Kosovo, where 80% of the budget goes to salaries.

As a concern, Qeha also mentioned not preparing about 40 percent of teachers to practice professions in specific profiles, since there is no literal training of teachers for practical work.

“Ende, we have a lack of points first of curriculums and textbooks that still have a lack of a physical curriculum, the current system based on competency is inconsistent with many investments, which have postponed professional schooling towards a dol system, such displacements within the system itself have influenced that the quality of professional schooling itself. I also remember that even in the budget reserved for professional schooling for 2019, about 80 per cent of the budget continues to go for wages as a result of decentralisation, other operational expenses have been required to be covered by the DKA. Forty percent of professional schooling teachers are supposed to be prepared to develop a profession in their assigned profiles, we have a lack of a systematic training system and update teacher knowledge”, Qehaja said.

Even Vetevendosje Movement MP Arberi Nagavci agreed that lack of budget and textbooks affects not developing professional schooling.

It's really disturbing that the budget for professional schools is insufficient, given the specific requirements of these schools both for working conditions within school and for organising practical learning, and also among the most disturbing remain the lack of curriculums and textbooks”, Nagavci said.

Anton Goyanni of the KIETI Institute demanded that institutions focus on students making professional schooling a primary and not third choice, since we still have substantial problems in this regard.

“We still have basic and structural problems still in professional education from the way we conceive and manage it, there is no known who structures and manages professional education, the Agency for Training and Professional Education has something, the ministry has something, the municipality has more responsibility and competence at least”, he said.

The head of the Division for Education and Professional Training in August, Valbona Fetiu-Mjeku, said there is no full decentralisation in Kosovo education, as even the budget is not set up properly for this area. According to her, no results can be expected in professional schools if the budget is not earmarked for labs and equipment.

I didn't call it the Government's achievement if a budget for wages goes up, but not a cent was raised in quality insurance, I didn't see that it had impacts in the lab. It's destiny. Maybe we've taken it as a donor wait. As the Ministry of Education, we are available to schools and all requirements, but what are the capacities to achieve this without the help of all are very small, even the likelihood of moving forward is small”, the doctor said.

The education field expert Dukagjin Pupovci from the Kosovo Center for Education, who said the Kosovo Assembly is entitled to take the initiative in implementing the law on quality education.

The “Framework is designed to make the initiative to implement the law on education and professional skills, and to reflect on whether it is better to continue these schools to be managed by the municipality, or to create really a strong agency at the level of the country, which will then make their management that for a small state for 68 schools of decentralisation is a very great luxury for each municipality to submit authorisation”, he said.

The Vetevendosje movement has also organised othermatically educational tables in Kosovo, where a session through which a resolution for education is intended will be issued.