There are 11 students from the Bosniak community who attend the primary school “Naim Frashëri”, in Prishtina. These students have not been able to attend geography, history and civic education for a year, because the teacher who teaches these subjects did not have the technological equipment to connect with the students when the classes were held online.
The pandemic has affected the students of the Bosniak community to face many difficulties in the educational process, while the lack of textbooks in the Bosnian language has only aggravated their situation.
Edin Bacevac is a ninth-grade student at the elementary school “Naim Frashëri”, in Prishtina. He tells how it was for him to hold the lesson online, which he says that the fact that during that time there were only two students enabled them to agree with the teachers when they would hold the lesson.
Bacevac: For me and my friend that we were together online classes were not a problem
“It wasn’t diffuclt to hold online classes, we got along well with the teachers. We had the books with us, the notebooks, the teachers told us what to do … For me and my friend who were together online it was not a problem, all the teachers came … It was not the same as being in class, but we learned well, in all subjects we tried to learn as well as possible”, he says.
Edini shares the class with two other students, and if this number were bigger, he says there would be even more interactivity and competition.
Bacevac: If we were 10 students, there would be a lot more competition
“Thus, with two or three students, it is not a problem at all, because this way we can learn more than with 25-30 students … If we were 10 students, it would have been much bigger competition”, he says.
The interruption of the internet has been the main problem faced by two other students of the primary school “Naim Frashëri”, in Prishtina. Parent Demir Markovic says that his son and daughter had many problems while attending online classes.
Markovic: Interruption of communication is the biggest technical obstacle
“Interruption of communication, now more people are connected, some have problems, the lecture is stopped until he is connected again and we continue where we left off. This has been the biggest technical obstacle that has appeared immediately, we are not prepared for that way of learning, we have not been able to prepare in time and we do not have the right skills. It means download, connect, here you have this program, here is this lesson, it means that the whole family should be involved in how to achieve something that is required by the students “, he says.
The teacher of the Albanian language in the primary school “Faik Konica”, Fahrije Mehmeti, is also considering teaching online a challenge.
Among the difficulties of working with students from the Bosniak community, she mentions the lack of textbooks.
Mehmeti: Online learning has been a challenge for us teachers as well
“Online teaching has been a challenge for us teachers because it was something new for us, then you know that in our country the network often has problems. I also work with Albanian students, these students have Albanian as a second language, thankfully they are very responsible children, they have responded to our call for online learning …. For years they promised us textsbooks for the Bosnian community, not only me as a teacher, that they Albanian as a second subject, just like they have English and German, but they also the teachers who teach them their mother tongue have problems. They promised to translate, to adapt, but we give our best”, she says.
The director of the primary school “Naim Frashëri”, in Prishtina, Shqipe Vllasalija-Mehmedi, also talks about the difficulties that the students of the Bosniak community had in the learning process.
She emphasizes that in this school there are 11 students from the Bosniak community who attend classes in Bosnian language and in the classroom, there is one, and in rare cases up to three students.
Vllasalija-Mehmedi emphasizes that the lack of textbooks in Bosnian language is an ongoing problem that they face as a school, but also the lack of qualified teachers for the subjects they lecture.
Mehmedi: There have been great difficulties in using the technology
“There were difficulties with online teaching because teachers are not trained for the curriculum, because their average age is quite high, there have been great difficulties in using technology. We had a case when the teacher settled in his hometown in Montenegro and for a very long time, he did not even have the opportunity to communicate with students in three subjects, since the teacher had a phone which did not allow him to communicate with students, meaning it was not a smartphone and we as a school were not able to help him, as we helped the teachers who were here, giving them a device to use. For almost a year, teachers and students have not been able to receive information in the subject of geography, history and civic education,” she said.
The learning process due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Kosovo was interrupted on March 11, 2020, while distance learning for students of the Bosniak community started on March 30, 2020, where initially the teaching units were broadcast through Radio Television of Kosovo, and then the online learning through various platforms started.
This article was realized within the project ”Identification of challenges in the learning process of children of non-majority community as a result of the Covid-19 Pandemic” implemented by the Center for Innovation and Development / CFID and funded by Slovak Agency for International Development Cooperation / SlovakAid.
