7 minutes agoDiscrimination of disabled people in Kosovo, since textbooks
Periskopi(2 years ago)
(2 years ago)When a student refused to share the dorm room with her, Mimoza Zamenou felt that her limitations were there. When someone doesn't accept you into the room for being blind... it's a strong emotion. That's exactly where you face your limits”, says the former psychology student. It comes from the Year ʹ section [...]
When a student refused to share the dorm room with her, Mimoza Zamenou felt that her limitations were there.
When someone doesn't accept you into the room for being blind... it's a strong emotion. That's exactly where you face your limits”, says the former psychology student.
It comes from the southeastern part of Kosovo ʹ and conducted studies in Pristina, about 60 km from its town.
At the time, he lived in a dormitory of the Students ' Center in the capital. But since the bathrooms were in common, he thought of moving to another dorm, where each room had its own bathroom.
I wanted to change the room, but that made me experience the bitter taste of discrimination I was rejected by a girl who was there and didn't want to share the room with me”, recalls Mimoza for Radio Free Europe.
She lost her eyesight in 2012, when she was 31, as a result of an unexpected health problem.
That year you call it the black “ ”. He had to spend another year until he decided to become part of the organization of blind persons in Gjilan and then start his studies on General Psychological at Pristina University.
“It's been hard to adapt to learning through hearing, because for a person who's educated by writing himself, it's a challenge then keeping notes because I didn't know the lock [alphabet for blind persons] ”, Mimoza says today even with the completed master level.
Before she started her education, she worked as a nurse at the Main Centre of Family Medicine in the Year. And the transition to psychology didn't happen by accident.
I have personally experienced the lack of psychological help when I have lost sight. I've had a lot of need to talk to someone, but I haven't been able to find them, or I haven't had any resources that have driven me around”, says Mimoza, today 43 years old.
Books With Discretion and Contrition
The discrimination of specific categories of society in Kosovo has an even earlier beginning since school books.
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This example and others were recently identified in several elementary and lower-level textbooks in Kosovo, by various authors, during the revision of 38 properly 21 in the Albanian and 17 Math Language class.
This is the first phase of the revision that was conducted under a project for education, KosEd, supported by the European Union.
Education Minister Arberie Nagavci says the law envisions the continued revision of school textbooks every year.
So everything will be identified and the upgrade will be addressed in real time”, Nagavci tells Radio Free Europe.
The report has already been delivered to the Government of Kosovo and, according to Education Minister Arberie Nagavci, the identified problems will be addressed with the new Law for School Texts, which is under consideration.
According to Nagavci, the science texts are now in the process of starting the revision.
Nagavci says these reviews have also started by taking the results of test P ISA.
Kosovo, for several years, has almost come to the bottom of the list on this test, measuring students' literacy skills, science and mathematics.
Ragip Joshi, coauthor of one of the revised texts, tells Radio Free Europe that incorrect texts have had to return to the authors for improvement.
I don't remember [any mistakes], because we've had separate tasks, for example, part of literary texts, someone non-leitral, someone had grammar... but it doesn't mean that I'm perfect, so the book goes through the hands of the reactors, passes through the hands of the lecturers to finalize. And when it goes into the hands of the students, it's free of defect”, says Josh.
Regarding errors identified during reviewing the textbooks, Minister Nagavci says there will be measures against the reactors, which allowed such content.
We already have the recession, which, not only this year but also past years, has been excluded from involvement and granting them the same opportunity to be”, Nagavci says.
She adds that with the new law, it is envisioned that the names of the reactors are public from the start.
The revision report also identified texts with fancy contents, such as weight - bearing ones.
It was also estimated that the covers of some texts are not creative and do not motivate students for learning.
The contents and illustrations were sometimes deemed inappropriate for age, with students learning from that book.
Even gender discrimination was identified.
There's a lot of prejudice in this text about Emma, mocking that she's fat. In class, there are overweight students, so they may feel affected”, says the review report on one of the Albanian language texts.
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From digitizing to assessing teachers, what increases the quality in education?
Youth Qehaja, education court connoisseur and leader of the Edgood Institute, says that reviewing textbooks should be in service of authors and publishing houses so that identified errors can be turned into increased quality of textbooks.
“I very much hope that this initiated revision will turn into a sustainable mechanism, promoting continued improvement of school texts”, he tells Radio Free Europe.
Qehaja adds that the adoption of textbooks is made by detectives as key authorities, but that “their continued renaissance is what guarantees that the school text, indeed, is in service of quality teaching”.
The Effect of discriminated content on Children's Psychology
Tringa Visoca, a psychologist, tells Radio Free Europe that such texts have a negative effect on children, especially psychologically.
According to her, she risks installing kindness and discrimination among children within educational institutions themselves.
“Such cases have negative effects, such as measurable further, harassment, eliminating text reading desire, etc.”, says Visoka for Radio Free Europe.
Schools, helpless “” in addressing violence
She says that teachers should hold student lectures and talk about such negative phenomena in order to prevent cases of discrimination.
Visoka says Kosovo's corruption cases are widespread even among young people, and they can cause serious emotional consequences, according to her.
These can be prevented by the help of psychologists and classroom activities”, says Visoka.
Mimosa agrees. Today it is a support for many disabled people, since it is part of informal groups offering online therapy.
We often engage in various activities through organizations and support each other. There are self-support groups”, she says.
From these meetings, he says that he has learned how many bitter experiences people have just because they are blind.
When you read something in the book, you get good. If we want to fight discrimination, then we have to start from there, from the base where you've gone to be educated”, Mimoza says.
