Baština (Jan 2018)
The role and significance of education in the territory of Kosovo and Metohia in the past and today
Abstract
This work gives a short review of the development of education in the territory of Kosovo since the period of the Ottoman Empire. Different schools as well as syllabus and curriculum have contributed to the understanding and acceptance of national identities of various people who lived or still live in that territory. Century-long conflicts in their struggle for the territory, together with their religion, have created a multicultural society which still shows signs of intolerance due to different interpretations of history and perception of the first settlers of this territory. Just as with any other ethnic conflicts, the truth is never unilateral. The territory of Kosovo has faced numerous challenges for centuries, with education being only one of them. During the Ottoman Empire rule in the territory of Kosovo there were educational institutions in which non-Muslims were taught in their own language and religion so that after the Tanzimat period they could be entitled to attend Ottoman high schools and be included in the civil service. After the Balkan wars, the Ottoman Empire lost part of its territories, which changed the map of the Balkans of the time by creating national states as well as the national system of education. After the First World War, Kosovo became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes where schools in the Serbian language were introduced, while after the Second World War the common system of education was established. The Constitution from 1974 granted the minorities the right to use their own languages and alphabets. Positive changes in the educational policy did not alleviate the feeling of unequal treatment of the Albanian people, which will escalate in the student protests and requests for the establishment of the republic due to the larger number of inhabitants of Albanian nationality. Since the declaration of Kosovo independence in 2008, two separate systems of education have been applied. In the past few years the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, the work on the accession to the community of the European nations, building relations of mutual respect based on the non-discrimination principle have been more significant than the education issue, which has become highly politicised. Although ethnic and national identities play an important role in the political behaviour of a nation, education should be the foundation for building social prosperity and political stability. In the multicultural environment it is very important to develop intercultural understanding through dialogue which may also be promoted by educational institutions recognising specific cultural features of the other side, as well as confronting different perspectives for the members of the community in the same territory.
