PDK: Kurti government failed and abused online learning process

At a media conference, head of office and head of the Youth and Innovation Department, Muzafer Shala has said it is shameful that in the midst of classes broadcast on television, ads with the fired health minister's political figure, Arben Vitita.

According to him, broadcasting political messages are unnecessary psychosocial burden to children and an excessive abuse of the Vetevendosje Movement political propaganda.

Also, the next failure of the Ministry of Education is that it has failed to develop interactive learning, but only unilaterally via TV, when the scale of Internet expansion in Kosovo is about 90%.

This is Shala's full statement:

We are organising this press conference to denounce the errors and abuses being made by the dismissed government Education Ministry Kurti, with the curriculum for pre-university students during the pandemic period. As with all other measures against pandemic, this outgoing government of Albin Kurti has shown delay, inadequacy and neglect in the field of education.

First, it is shameful that among the lessons being broadcast on television, ads with the political figure of fired health minister Arben Vitita are included. It is not surprising why specific instructions with the voice and image of Arben Viti being targeted for adult growth should be transmitted along with programs dedicated to the audience of minor students. This is an unnecessary psychosocial burden for our children, as well as an extreme abuse of the Vetevendosje Movement's political propaganda.

Second, we want to sue the Ministry of Science and Technology, which is claiming to be organising online instruction via television. This is a lie, because what is being organised by the fired government should be called one-sided teaching, at a distance because internet learning is interactive. Online interactive or interactive teaching enables all students to discuss questions, exercise, or comments, suggestions, tasks, and evaluations from the teacher. Numerous reports and studies testify that Internet expansion in Kosovo includes 89% of the population, including massive rural areas.

So Kosovo has had all the preconditions for this time of pandemic to organise online learning, if Kurt's outgoing government were far-reaching and would have made proper preparations.

Thirdly, other neighboring countries have prepared instruction for online instruction much earlier, while Kosovo has prepared the “roadmap for students' assessment during distance study” only at the end of last week. So 7 weeks after the beginning of the pandemic in Kosovo. Kosovo was enough to follow the example of Albania, which has released the complete road map for the implementation of the painful programme and student evaluations during school in house conditions more than a month before Kosovo on March 21st.

In our government's delayed decision, date 24 April, among other things, is set that the final grade of the 2019-20 school year will not be lower than that of March 11, 2020. It's about the date that regular school training was interrupted because of pandemic. With this decision, the outgoing government is running away from testing students, to cover its failure to organise home school conditions during the pandemic.

This situation, it reminds me of 1999 when I was senior, and students had to stop learning in February because of the war. At the time, when we returned to Kosovo after the war, and the learning process was resumed, the decision was made that the final grade of that year was that of February 1999, similar to the current decision. This is a low, irresponsible act that has enormous costs for the quality of schooling and offends all parents who want the best for their children.