76 thousand euros for textbooks assessment process

Educators say no qualitative change of texts is expected. The education minister has said these texts will be piloted for a year and where weaknesses are seen will be withdrawn.

Pre-school students, 1, 2, 6, 7, 10 and 11 will begin the 2019/20 school year with new textbooks. Most of these texts will be prepared by publishing houses “Dukagini”, “Albas” and “Pegy”. For the process of reviewing textbooks, there were remarks by former members of the Council of Experts. But, the expert on education issues, Dukagjin Pupovci, told Radio Kosovo that drafting these texts has not gone into any process, which is distinct from the past. However, he said the evaluation process has been more controlled.

Education Minister Shyqi Bytyqi said they expect to have quality texts and, in line with Kurrikula. He said these texts would be pilot for the 2019/20 school year, to see if there would be remarks from teachers, students and other performers.

Where we're going to notice weaknesses that are not texts as reflected, we're going to attract texts. Normally in such a large process, including a large number of professionals, there may be problems along the way. There have been times when the narrow interests of certain ones were presented, which for us has not borne weight for the reasons of a large process.

Regarding piloting textbooks, Dukagjin Pupovci said the pilot would have to take place in a smaller number of schools, rather than in all schools in the country.

And in terms of complaints from publishing houses that have not won, the Ministry of Education has declared that the complaint commission will be formed, which will review them. However, all the results have not yet been published. The entire process of rating textbooks has cost around 76 thousand euros.