Functional Review of the Ministry of Education, Science and ...

In connection with agencies, special attention needs to be paid to the issue of inspection. According to the
Law on Inspection of Education in Kosovo No. 2004/37 (law on inspection), the inspection in Kosovo’s
case deals with all levels and types of education. In some countries, the word “inspection” relates more to
pre-university education. As for higher education, the control and assessment of education are executed
within processes called accreditation and evaluation and the general control of observance of laws in the
higher education institutions is performed by a dedicated ministry’s control unit. In fact, also in Kosovo the
main effort and capacities of inspection are concentrated on pre-university education and the inspection of
higher education is limited to the control of observance of laws and does not deal with evaluation of quality
of education. The inspection is often executed by dedicated agencies (in EU-6 ministries it is the case of
Latvia, Slovenia and Slovakia). The Kosovo’s legal regulations explicitly state that the inspection is
performed by an executive body in the framework of the MEST and that the head of inspection (Chief
Inspector of Education) reports to the PS.
Recommendation B.21: Conduct an independent cost-benefit analysis of the delegation of
implementation tasks currently performed by the MEST to the Accreditation Agency and to the
Centre of Evaluation for Pre-university Education. Make a decision only on the basis of the
analysis
Recommendation B.22: Engage the Pedagogical Institute in development activities for preuniversity
education.
Recommendation B.23: Shift service delivery functions for the university/research community
under the Prishtina University (Student Center, University Library).
Recommendation B.24: Retain the Inspection Department as a part of the MEST. Define more
precisely the role of inspection in higher education in the law on inspection. Consider its
transformation to an agency in longer run.
PART C: Summary of recommendations and sequencing
This part contains summary of recommendations suggested by the report and the proposal for sequencing
in their implementation and also a brief look at the relationship of the report recommendations with gender
and EPAP objectives.
C.1 Summary of organizational recommendations
The report contains both organizational and other recommendations. In this section, we provide a
summary of the organizational recommendations.
C.1.1 Organizational recommendations for the MEST
Design and implement a new MEST’s organizational structure based on 2 levels with the following basic
rules:
the units at the upper level are generally called departments, the units at the lower level are
generally called divisions; other names can also be used,
each unit at the lower level is a part of a unit at the upper level,
there are no initial limitations on the size and structure of organizational units,
department may or may not be divided into divisions,
the partition of a department into division need not involve all members of the department.
In terms of specific reorganization, this is the summary of all organizational recommendations that involve
a CHANGE from the current situation:
Establish 2 departments - the Department of VET and the Department of General Education
replacing the current Department of Pre-university Education Administration and Department for
22