Abandoned and damaged school images closed around Kosovo

Tens of schools in Kosovo, mainly in rural areas, have been closed in recent years because of a small number of students. Once full of students, they are now a sad sight for the inhabitants of those areas.

On a September afternoon, Sebahate Sejdiu from Ferizaj's village of Goulzaj was looking down the main road awaiting a bus for children.

Sebahatja has four children attending the School of Initiation “Besim Rexhepi” in the village of Komoglava, about four kilometers away.

For 30-year-old, this is the first September the kids have to take a bus to school.

Until this school year, they attended school lessons close to their home, which served as the separate parallel of the School “Besim Rexhepi”.

This school was closed this year because there were only 11 students left.

We've had meetings, we've been told it's closed. Even though the children didn't want to close, they wanted [to learn] here, but what to do...”, says Sebahatja for Radio Free Europe.

In the Ferizaj municipality, they say they are facing a drastic decline in the number of students.

In some schools, mainly in villages, the number of pupils in the last decade has dropped from 50 to 70 percent”, says the municipality for Radio Free Europe, warning that other schools are also at risk of closure.

Besides Ferizaj, statistics show that the number of students is in constant decline across Kosovo in recent years.

According to Education Ministry data, the number of students at all levels of public education in the 2022/23 school year is about 300 thousand, compared to three years ago when it was over 318.

Migrating the decline in nighttime are the biggest causes of this number, institutions say.
The rural areas, especially, are being affected by the internal migration of residents into the city.

According to data that has collected Radio Free Europe from a part of Kosovo municipalities, at least 40 school objects have been closed in the country's last 10 years.

Most of the closed schools are what are called separate parallels in mother schools.

Under the legislation in Kosovo, a certain school may also have parallels, respectively, other school objects in another location, but that they share the same leadership.

Paraleagues can be established when students from a location have a distance of over four kilometers from mother school and when there are at least 20 students in that location.

Books, notebooks, and scriptures on the textbooks have remained as frozen in time in the mountainous village of Kotlin, in the Kachannik municipality.

Even there this year, the school closed its doors.

The school, which was established over 70 years ago, was left this year with only three students.

Nazir Red, former director of this school, says closing this facility was emotional for him, since he had been teaching there and had developed a career.

However, he points out, learning with few students in class or combined classes is not qualitative.

The [school closing] communication to students has been painful. But students have found out for themselves, because in time they understand things, that something is coming to the end, and it's something you can't stop”, says Red.

In the Kachanik municipality, six other school objects in villages have been closed in the past ten years to Radio Free Europe.

About 20 miles [30 km] from the Kachanik, in the neighboring municipality of the Year lies a mountainous and tourist village called Dumbledore.

In recent years this village has had infrastructure development with new restaurant and tourist villa buildings.

However, because of the evacuation of residents and, subsequently, village students, the school, built on top of a hill, was closed last year.

The municipality of the Year did not reveal when this school was established, but in 2021 the school had 15 students, according to public records.

In addition to staying untapped, some schools closed in recent years have also been damaged.

In the village of Aberia's Upper Town, the parallel school divided “7 September” has been closed since 2018.

The windows are broken, and its interior is filled with refuse.

This is one of three schools that the Drensa Town has closed in the last four years because of its small number of students.

According to the municipality, this area continues to face small numbers of students.

Currently, there are three other schools with a small number of students that have not yet been decided on whether to close.

Kosovo's Education Ministry tells Free Europe Radio that over the past year it has conducted an analysis regarding the small number of students.

We discussed this analysis with the Municipal Education Directors and presented the current situation to them. The steps that must be taken by municipalities” are also presented in the analysis, the ministry says, without specifying more.

According to Youth Qehaja, education field connoisseur and leader of the “Institute Edguard” in Kosovo, falling students is not surprising.

“What is surprising is the institutional failure to adapt policies and investment in education to the declining number of students”, says Qehaja.

According to him, an analysis should be made regarding the number of pupils per square meter in different areas and with the trends of population movement before decisions are made to open or close schools.

The hill's lip, with its view of green mountains, is also closed in schools in the village of Veshec, Suhareka.

Until recently, there were fewer than 20 students in it.

But some of the villagers remember when the school was more active than that.

I have good memories as a student”, says Euron Daka, now 21.

The euron has conducted elementary school in the facility now closed, due to a lack of students.

In his day as a student, he recalls having more friends and friends who learned together at school.

The “is now closed, it's bad. Normally, I feel bad not only I, but the entire village of”, says the young man, who, however, feels that very few classrooms do not make school enjoyable.
The Suhareka municipality, in the last 10 years, has closed five school objects because of lack of students. / REL