Kosovo Human Development Report 2010 - UNDP Kosovo - United ...

strate a wide range of learning needs.
Some may experience difficulties with
reading, writing, or mathematics. Others
may belong to ethnic minorities
and not speak or write well in Albanian.
Others may be from poor households
that have difficulties buying food, footwear
and books. Wheelchair users may
need special physical access to schools
and universities.
The mechanisms that shut many
of these students out of the education
process in Kosovo have unique historical/socio-cultural
and governance
roots, namely:
(i) Socio-cultural drivers
• Inter-generational poverty and
unemployment: 48.6 percent of
children 0-19 in Kosovo are classified
as poor. 81 As elsewhere, poverty
– itself a product of low education
– makes it very hard for children to
reach the classroom. For those poor
children who do attend, drop-out
rates are higher and learning less
easy. Poor children are excluded in a
number of ways. Their families may
not be able to afford even minimal
outlays for books, clothing and
meals. They may be obliged to work
to supplement low family incomes.
Their nutritional status essential for
brain development and learning
energy is often poorer than that of
their counterparts. Their feelings of
marginalization and relative worthlessness
can make school a painful
experience. Since poverty and lack
of access to factor markets is directly
correlated with education levels,
their parents are unlikely to have
high education standards themselves.
Thus, there is often no role
model in the household to encourage
Kosovo’s poor children to acquire
an education. Prioritization of
56 | KOSOVO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010
education as a factor in household
expenditures is likely to be lower
among poor families. 82
• A historical legacy of exclusion:
Kosovo’s legacy of division greatly
complicates the provision of equal
opportunity to all potential students.
83 Organization of a parallel
educational system by the Kosovo-
Serb minority after the end of the
armed conflict in Kosovo, as a form
of self-exclusion from the formal
educational system of Kosovo, is
one of the biggest challenges to
the functioning of an educational
system in Kosovo as a whole. At the
same time, this parallel system also
prevents the collection of statistics
on inclusion of the Kosovo-Serb
students at all levels of education.
• Low cultural prioritization of early
childhood learning: early childhood
learning has been shown worldwide
to promote higher school attendance
and better quality of education.
However, Kosovo has an
alarmingly low rate of pre-school
enrolment. Kindergartens and preschools
are not only not part of the
learning culture, but out of reach
for the most vulnerable and those
least likely to stay in school. Only
5,051 (around 12 percent) of preschool
children were in early learning
in 2006-2007. 84 Children residing
in rural areas often do not have
access to preschool education programmes
at all which negatively
affects their early learning. 85 While
98.2 percent of children included
in the preschool institutions are
Kosovo-Albanians, only 1.7 percent
are from other ethnic groups. In
smaller municipalities (Malishevë/
Malisevo, Dragash/Dragas, Junik,
and Mamusha), there are no children
reported to be enrolled in
preschool institutions.
• Discrimination in a vacuum of
social cohesion: above all, inclu-