Republic of Kosovo

Capital: Prishtina (Priština)
Area: 10.877 km²
Population: ca. 1,8 Mio.
Official Languages: Albanian and Serbian, partially Turkish.

Webtips:
Government 
Ministry of Education, Science and Technology
Education Centre Kosovo

In close cooperation with Kosovo’s Ministry of Education, KKA is implementing projects in the field of teacher training and in-service training. In terms of content, the projects focus on commercial vocational education and training as well as on new forms of teaching and learning in primary schools.

Key Focuses:

Vocational education and training in lower secondary and upper secondary schools (commercial schools)

New forms of teaching and learning in primary schools

Examples

ECO NET

The project “ECO NET”, funded by Austrian Development Cooperation and the Federal Ministry for Education, Arts and Culture, supports the reform of secondary commercial schools (levels 10 to 13) in Kosovo, with the object of enhancing the labour-market relevance of initial business education and training and thereby increasing the opportunities of commercial school graduates in the labour market.
The concluding phase (1 January 2010 – December 2012) focuses on sustainably establishing the training firm learning method in Kosovo’s commercial secondary schools and, in this context, on quality development, the enhancement of the school infrastructure and the development of a training firm handbook for teachers. Altogether, almost 100 teachers and 12 principals have been trained during the project.

New Forms of Teaching and Learning in Primary Schools

The Kosovar Ministry of Education is striving to develop and implement an inclusive system of education. In order to take the heterogeneity of the pupils properly into account, teaching personnel have to be trained accordingly.
Since November 2009, KKA has been implementing the project “Individualisation of Teaching/Learning” at the request of the Kosovar Ministry of Education. Methods for individualising and modernising the teaching/learning at primary schools and methods for preparing materials for this type of teaching/learning were developed in cooperation with Austrian and Kosovar experts in the field. 18 participants from four primary schools in Kosovo (in Pristina, Gjilan, Prizren and Peja) were given training in individualised teaching methods and the four primary schools were established as resource centres for individualised teaching/learning. In the second phase, which has been in progress since November 2010, teachers who have completed this training have been holding seminars for other teachers at their schools in order to introduce their colleagues to the basic principles of the new forms of teaching and learning and the associated preparation of materials. The first series of seminars concluded at the end of December 2010; the second series began at the beginning of March 2011.

The programme has been certified by the Ministry of Education of Kosovo. The project will conclude in October 2011 with a nation-wide conference aimed at exchanging experiences with the new teaching/learning methods. In future, the four pilot schools will serve as resource centres providing further training for the teachers of their respective regions in the context of a project financed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Contact
Michael König (Educational Coordinator)