The teachers of the 1990s expect compensation

The value converted into euro currency for their teaching contribution during the 1990s starts from 19 to 95 euros, depending on how long they worked.

This amount was divided under the Law for the status of Albanian education workers of the Republic of Kosovo from 1990 to 1999, which was adopted at the end of February at the Kosovo Assembly and entered into force in April of this year.

Bahri Xhaferi, leader of the Department of Pensions at the Ministry of Labour and Social Management, has announced to Radio Free Europe that there are more than 7,500 front-runners of the demand for compensation.

The presentation of the requirements began in August, continued in September, and continues further. There are over 7,500 requests submitted by former educators throughout Kosovo's territory so far. We've also started monitoring pre-responsive documentation. We are under way, as planned until their payment, and are making efforts to make payment prior to November”, Xhaferi says.

Based on a done estimate, a teacher who worked nine years will be “compensated” with 95 euros per month and pension contributions of 260 euros. That means they will be paid 355 euros per month. But the sum will be smaller for the teachers who have been able to work in the short.

In the meantime, if the person is dead, the compensation is to be made with his mate.

Former Albanian education workers of the Republic of Kosovo, who have worked during the 1990/91 to the 1998/99 school period, from 1508.2019, Xhaferi says, have begun to submit compensation requirements, meanwhile that deadline closes on November 31st.

For all who apply until November 30th, there will be reform payment from April when the law has entered into force. As for those after December 1st and beyond, realising the right to pay compensation begins by date, respectively, the month of submitting the application”, Xhaferi says.

The chairman of the United Trade Union for Education, Science and Culture, Nundman Jasharaj, told Radio Free Europe that he believes legal deadlines will be respected, and the compensation fees will not be delayed.

“Ende has not begun law enforcement, our colleagues who worked in those years have not received compensation, but we have been promised to take it with the November pension, but who will receive retroactively since April, when the law has entered into force. To begin with, there are about nine thousand persons who will be compensated, and then their number will increase. But there are also those who have contributed to education at that time but who have died”, says Jasharaj.

Besides teachers, according to the law the owners of houses who at that time have issued their objects to be used as schools will enjoy pests as well as technical workers and servants.

The cost of law enforcement, according to an earlier response from the Ministry of Education, for 2019 will be 6.6m euros, and for 2020 about 7.4m euros. Meanwhile, the number of teachers who were engaged in the education process during the 1990s-1999 is estimated to be around 23 thousand.

At the time when this law was under way, the International Monetary Fund had called on Kosovo institutions not to proceed further with empowering the Law for Education Workers in the 1990s, because it was estimated to be a very high cost, for a poor country such as Kosovo.

Teaching in Kosovo during the 1990s has been held in houses-schools, according to parallel organisation that Albanian political representatives had then established, rejecting submission to Belgrade's policy and the then-Serbian former elite Slobodan Milosevic.