The Organization for the Improvement of Quality in Education (ORCA) through a protest action today denounced the attempt for what they called the capture of independent state agencies by the exponents of power.

The activities coordinator from ORCA, Dibran Hoxha emphasized the effort of the scientist Driton Vela to be elected a member of the board of the Kosovo Agency for Accreditation.

Hoxha listed some of the deceptions, which according to him, the former candidate of the Vetëvendosje Movement for deputy in the Assembly of Kosovo, Driton Vela, has done in connection with his professional development.

"Unfortunately for him and for the good of Kosovo, Driton Vela's attempt to seize this position failed, as during the examination of the applications, the commission discovered a shocking fact. Driton Vela had tried to deceive the committee by stating in his CV and in the application form that in 2021 he had been the holder of the Preclinical Medicine doctorate program at the University of Pristina, if this information was not revealed by the evaluation committee, it would made him automatically rank higher in the list of recommended members of the KSHC. But, after verifying these claims, the commission discovered Vela's fraud and with the strong insistence of the international member of the commission Efka Eder, Driton Vela was disqualified from the competition," said Hoxha.

Further, Hoxha said that Driton Vela has only two original scientific articles, out of 13 that he has presented, because according to him, 10 are "review articles" and one is a meta-analysis.

Furthermore, Hoxha emphasizes that Driton Vela has deceived "Research Gate" when he claimed to have a laboratory "Driton Vela's lab", which according to him, a paper published in "Faseb Journal" is listed in that laboratory, where Vela did not is the author.

"Driton Vela deceives when he says in one of his public appearances that he completed his doctorate in Skopje. This is untrue. There are dozens of posts ready for the public from the University of Pristina, which confirm the completion of Vela's doctorate at UP... Scientist Vela does not have any publications in 2022 and 2023, source: Google Scholar and Scopus Author Search", said Hoxha.

Among other things, Hoxha said that Vela has participated in conferences in Kosovo, Albania, North Macedonia and Turkey, and that according to him, if his achievements were so well known, he would be able to penetrate beyond this narrow circle of these countries.

Hoxha also mentioned the professors, Bujar Dugolli and Ardian Kastrati, calling them plagiarists.

He accused the government of favoring private colleges.

"The government that favors private colleges by lowering the criteria for accreditation, allowing accreditation of programs with people without superior academic qualifications, and finally a former candidate for deputy from the ranks of the VV who teaches the board of an independent agency. "Dritonas, Bujarats, Ardianas and Selimas are already a phenomenon in our country, but the fight against them will always become stronger", declared Hoxha.

Otherwise, in the last month, the Organization for the Increase of Quality in Education (ORCA), through the protest action "Returning the brain or capturing the University", has shown dissatisfaction with the appointment of various academic positions in UP, emphasizing that all failures in UP will be billed to the Kurti government./Mr. Zeneli​/