Better late than never: 50-year-old girl in Kosovo goes to first grade

Not six, not seven, but fifty years old in the first grade! Someone might look incredible, and many could be surprised, but so many had a woman from the central part of Kosovo when she started school three years ago.

If I was told many years ago that one day I would come to school, I would never believe. But, here... wonder”, says the light.

Today 53 years old, she attends informal learning at the Initiation School “Emin Duraku” in Pristina.

It is the only public institution in the capital that offers such instruction to raise between the ages of 18 and 50.

The first class by the fifth, they end for a school year, while the next year lasts from 18 weeks.

Over the course of this period, they reach the knowledge of the initials, who for various reasons have not been able to follow as children.

Dreams of the years

“We were a lot of children in the family and parents could not afford to educate us all”, says Light for Radio Free Europe, which requires not to be fully identified.

The dream of being educated thinks he's been following it since the '80s when he saw his cousin go to school.

It shows that the poems and a letter here and there learned it from her. But she says that there was another loving moment for her - when her cousin prepared the bag for tomorrow's schedule.

I went to her every day, just to see how she shares her schedule... I often asked her to do it instead of”, says Light.

She does not want to talk much about the years after, nor about the beauty and challenges that life brought her. But he says that once he heard of the possibility of informal learning, he did not think much.

In addition to family obligations and maintenance work, he began to travel several miles daily from the city where he lives to go to school in Pristina.

I like neurology, math is harder. It's hard to settle tasks, but I'm also helped by educators”, says Light.

Dream Left Half

A history similar to that is shared by the group's friend Flora. She returned to school two years ago, or almost 20 years after leaving her without her consent.

I started school in the sixth grade, but from my village there was no girl, and the road to the next village, where the school was, was long... My parents were concerned about my safety and forced me to interrupt the school”, remembering Flora upset, not wanting her to be fully identified either.

Today 34 years of age, she attends informal instruction in the ninth grade.

As he speaks of Radio Free Europe, he shows that he has consistently considered how to pursue one day of schooling.

She says she has attended several clothing courses and that she is employed in a design house in Pristina, but that she has never met.

“Continued, with everyone I met, express interest and desire to continue school... because I don't know education”, Flora says.

And in 2022 he joined the group of adults at the school “Emin Duraku” that had similar fates.

I missed the banks, too much homesickness, too much excitement”, says 34-year-old.

Adult students say they get along well and, besides learning together, they also get time for fun.

Unlike light, Flora enjoys mathematics and information technology.

He says learning at this age is more challenging, but he doesn't intend to stop at primary school alone. She also wants to attend high school and university so that she can become a programmer someday.

This way I will fulfill the dream left at the half-x1>, Flora says.

More Women Than Men in Informal Education

Her school principal, Wiszar Osmani, boasts of the possibility this institution gives to adults.

He says the school “Emin Duraku” for about two decades provides informal instruction and that the number of candidates is on the rise in the last three years about 30, as opposed to previous years when it was half smaller.

“Grate makes up the majority of participants annually”, Osmani says of Radio Free Europe.

According to him, it has been economic difficulties for many of the candidates that have been unable to improve their schooling on time.

Unformal learning to increase is offered free in Kosovo, as is formal education, and is organised by the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and innovation (MASHTI).

Over the years, several thousand candidates have succeeded.

Aferdita Jaha, official for informal education and education to increase in this ministry, says this process currently takes place in five Kosovo municipalities: Pristina, South Mitrovica, Prizren, Gjilan and Pec.

According to her, there are about 70 candidates who attend informal instruction in these municipalities this year.

Each of them is equipped with primary school certificates at the end of the ninth grade.

Jaha says that the development of this process depends on the demands of citizens as well as on municipal budgetary opportunities, as teachers, in addition to the basic wage, receive additional workshops for engagement in informal learning.

The non-form learning “aims to provide a second opportunity for those who have not completed mandatory education, enabling educational and professional integration”, Jaha tells Radio Free Europe.

With the law in Kosovo, the completion of elementary school is mandatory, but because of various social and political circumstances, especially prior to the 1998/99 war, many citizens did not complete it.

Population registration in 2024 showed that Kosovo's literacy rate has dropped by 2.27 percent from 3.38 percent as it was recorded in the 2011 census.

Otherwise estimated, over 360,000 citizens in Kosovo with 1.5 million inhabitants are illiterate.

Most of them, according to the AKS report, are aged “”, but age is not specified there.

If only I were a little younger, I would willingly continue my higher education in educators, but age, age...”, Light concludes. / REL