On February 17, 2008, Kosova/o declared itself an independent country. It was promptly recognized as such by a majority of states but not by all – in Europe most notably Russia and Serbia. Neither did EU member states Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain recognize the new state.
In Kosova/o today, Albanians make up about 88 per cent of the total population. The remaining 12 per cent comprise eight per cent Serb and four per cent Roma, Ashkali, Egyptian (RAE), Bosniak, Turk and Croat communities. It is estimated that 40 per cent of the population are under the age of 18. These children and young people mirror Kosova/o of tomorrow. How they manage to co-exist in a multiethnic state will be of decisive importance to the future of the country.
Today, the population is almost entirely segregated along ethnic lines – and this goes for the education system as well. Thus, education has a very important role to play in counteracting division, discrimination and instability. Cultural and ethnic prejudices must be challenged from a young age, but Kosova/o has the lowest rate of pre-school attendance in Europe. This calls for thinking along new lines.
Education for all - a pilot model
In this environment of segregated living, the Mozaik project was designed and introduced in 2006 as a pilot model of multi-ethnic pre-school education. The purpose is twofold: to develop in young children values and skills with which to resolve conflict in terms of their own experiences in their own reality, and to involve their parents in increased inter-community interaction. The project’s strategic objectives are to:
Reduce conflict in communities through increasing interaction between members of different ethnic communities;
Enhance the skills of participating teachers to impart Mozaik philosophy;
Create a unique space for children in which to initiate communication and build their capacity to solve problems in a bilingual and multi-ethnic environment;
Provide a model of the Mozaik project that can be expanded across Kosova/o so as to be owned and sustained by local institutions.
What happens in real life?
The results in short: As noted in an independent evaluation report by Dr Lesley Saunders, UK, from December 2008, the teachers are key to the success of the project. They all have been specially recruited and trained, and they need to be committed to the principles of Mozaik. Kindergarten directors have also received Mozaik training – including visits to a Mozaik project in bilingual Macedonia – on inclusive education, bilingualism and parent-teacher relationships. The children were positively engaged in a variety of group and individual activities, which they seemed to enjoy and to be learning from. All the parents interviewed, including those from minority ethnic groups, were very positive about Mozaik, both in principle and in terms of the benefits they felt their own children were deriving from the classes.
Although some parents had not fully understood, or accepted the Mozaik philosophy at the beginning, all of them now expressed satisfaction with the project. Many examples were given of how children had quickly become adept at speaking another language and were acting as interpreters for their parents, and/or how they had made friends with children of other ethnic groups in the neighbourhood. Most believed that this was the way of the future for Kosva/o. Many referred to the need for the political and social future to be different from the recent past: Rrepairing our history’.
The evaluator made one observation: The parents who came to the discussion group meetings seemed to be mainly from the professional middle class. Perhaps Mozaik tends to attract middle class parents whose views and values are already sympathetic to Mozaik aims. Or maybe middle class parents are the only ones who can pay between 30 and 50 euros a month for kindergarten provision. As pre-school education and kindergartens are not yet organized by the state, there is a need to further push for giving children a chance to attend pre-school - independently of the income of their parents.