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

• Equip teachers with inclusionsensitive
skills: teachers can make
all the difference when it comes to
encouraging attendance and preventing
drop-out rates. Kosovo’s
teachers need to be equipped to
support socially excluded groups
in classrooms. Since 2000, many local
and international organisations
and institutions such as the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),
the Kosovo Educator Development
Program (KEDP), Finnish Support
to the Development of Education
Sector in Kosovo (FSDEK), and the
Kosovo Education Center (KEC)
have supported MEST to provide
training programmes for Kosovan
teachers, including trainings on
inclusion. It has become urgent
now that this knowledge and new
methodologies are applied in practice.
• Strengthen capacities at the municipal
level when implementing
decentralization: concerted
action must be taken to build
management capacities in schools,
and strengthen linkages between
schools and communities (through
NGOs and other parent-teacher
style associations). Implementation
of the Law on Education is
hampered at the local level by the
lack of adequate financial and administrative
capacities in the municipal
education directorates under a
newly decentralized system. 116 Decentralization
can improve resource
allocation and services provision by
bringing decision makers and service
providers closer to residents.
It can also lead to a higher level of
responsiveness and customization
where local public servants develop
and implement unique solutions
to specific local problems.
The decentralization of education
management can provide a posi-
64 | KOSOVO HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2010
tive opportunity for an increased
role of the community in remedying
issues of social exclusion in
the school system. However, the
realization of these opportunities
depends entirely on institutional
capacity on the ground, and interlinkages
with communities.
(ii) Promote and prioritize education
among those unlikely to be included
• Develop financial and cultural
incentives for education among
the poor, families with disabled
children and RAE communities –
focusing on girls: Kosovo’s young
excluded students require a comprehensive
social mobilization strategy,
backed by financing, to open their
access to schooling. The financial
and cultural barriers experienced
by poor, disabled and minority children
cannot be overcome outside
the context of their communities
and families. However, promotion
of education in principle, without
solutions to pressing issues of family
poverty, the high price of transport,
the need for children to supplement
incomes etc., may also be
ineffective. Special strategies are
needed to encourage the attendance
and retention of rural girls
who, as a group, are the least likely
to receive a quality education. In
addition to widespread community
behaviour-change strategies,
policy options for financial support
include providing allocations
for targeted forms of student support
such as scholarships and subsidies
on canteen meals and living
allowances. To raise additional
revenues to cover these targeted
programmes, schools may charge
for elective studies and extra-curricular
activities.
• Encourage early childhood learning
institutionally and culturally:
Kosovo must instill a culture of early