The University of Pristina as well as the Universiteti i Prishtinës (Albanian: Universiteti i Prishtinës) and Univerzitet u Prištini (Serbian: Универзитет у Приштини, Univerzitet u Prištini; Turkish: Priştine Üniversitesi; Latin: Universitas Studiorum Prishtiniensis) is the name of two entirely separate Universities in Kosovo[a], they split in 1999 as a result of the Kosovo War. The original site of the University is now occupied by ethnic Albanians, while a second University campus has been build in North Kosovska Mitrovica that is attended almost exclusively by Serbs.
The fact that both Universities claim the same name and history is generally confusing to anyone unfamiliar with Kosovo's history. Often the differing addresses and languages the name is written in are the only way to tell the two apart in any official correspondence.
The original university was opened in Socialist Republic of Serbia, Yugoslavia, in the city of Pristina, for the academic year 1969/1970[1][2] and functioned as the University of Priština until 1999. However, owing to political upheaval, war, successive mutual expulsions of faculty of one ethnicity or the other, and resultant pervasive ethnic-based polarisation, currently, there are two separate, disjoint institutions, both using the same name, albeit each notated idiosyncratically, to reflect their polarized ethnic identity and divergent physical locations, separate Albanian and Serbian entities:
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In 2003 the University in Pristina had been described as being "at the very core of political conflict and the self-esteem of Albanian Kosovars[15] ". It was for many years accused by Serbian politicians and the Serbian media of promoting ethnic Albanian separatism in Kosovo,[16] and following the rise to power of Slobodan Milošević it was purged of those deemed to be separatists. It was at this time that the university faculty split into Serbian and Albanian halves, with the Serbian staff controlling the campus and the sacked Albanian staff gone "underground" for much of the 1990s, providing education informally and in secret for Kosovo Albanian students.[17]
Following establishing NATO control over the territory of Kosovo, the Albanian faculty gained control of the campus after the end of the Kosovo War in 1999, while the Serbian faculty relocated first to central Serbia (from 1999 to 2001 the seat was in Kruševac) and two years later to the northern Kosovo (the seat is currently in Northern Kosovska Mitrovica).
Despite the common name and history, the two universities are not combined or maintain any cooperative relationship. The faculties of the exiled university have been recognized by UNMIK and EUA under the name University in Mitrovica[4] and the University is additionally recognized by the Serbian government as a Serbian institution. It is a member of the Conference of the Universities of Serbia (KONUS)[18] and European University Association[19][20][21][22][23] and has established cooperations with the Balkan Universities Network and numerous institutions worldwide (France, Russia, Italy, Norway, Oman, Ireland, UK.).[24]
On the other hand, with the formal declaration of independence of Kosovo on 17 February 2008, the University of Prishtina located physically in Pristina, the university in an Albanian-language version, occupancies the campus in the capital of Kosovo, functioning as the chief university of Kosovo, and according to its website, is also a member of European University Association. It maintains wide contacts with Western European and American universities and institutions. It is the ongoing old University of Priština.[10][11][12][13]
The academic year of the University (including the University of Mitrovica) runs from 1 October through 30 September, organized in two semesters, with 30 weeks' worth of teaching per year.[15]
Serbian university, University of Mitrovica, had 14 faculties with about 18,000 students and over 1,300 faculty and staff members in 1999.[8][25] In the same year, after the Kosovo War was finished, about 6,000 students transferred to other universities in central Serbia.[25] In 2001 (while was situated in Kruševac) it had 17,000 students. From 1999 to 2001 about 2,000 students graduated from the University of Priština, 50 students was awarded Magister degrees, and 20 earned their doctorates.[26] After moving back to Kosovo only 6,500 students decided to continue their education at this University.[27] In 2004 University had 10 faculties with about 8,000 students and enrollment quota of 1,200 students.[28] In August 2007 it had 9,320 students, over 700 faculty and about 200 staff members.,[29][30][31] and its enrollment quota was 2,726 students.[32] About 45% of students were from Kosovo, 30% from central Serbia, 25% from Montenegro. There was also a smaller number of students from Republic of Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.[33] Currently, there are 10.264 students, 730 faculty, and 320 staff members.[34]
In the academic year 2004/2005, Albanian university counted 28,832 undergraduate students,[35] 15,596 (54.1%) men and 13,236 (45.9%) women;[35] 28,567 (99%) students were of Albanian ethnicity, 125 (0.4%) Bosniaks, 114 (0.4%) Turks, and 25 (0.1%) of other ethnic groups.[35]
About 3,000 students receive bachelor or master degrees every year at University of Prishtina, the majority in social and human sciences. More than 50,000 have graduated from the university since its establishment.
Unlike most other European universities, University of Priština operates as a loose association of faculties, each with a legally autonomous status and administrative structure. This has been criticized by the World Bank as leading to a redundant duplication of programmes and facilities, hindering an effective prioritization of programmes.[36]
The first faculties of the future University of Priština were opened in early 60s[2][37][38] with full support in staff and finance from the University of Belgrade.[2] In the beginning, most of the faculties have operated as external units of the University of Belgrade.[2] As nearly all members of the staff were Serbs, the education was performed in Serbian language.[2] Since autumn of 1966, after Brioni session of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia,[2] instruction in Albanian language was mandatory, if a class had even a single assistant who was Albanian.[2]
As the number of faculties grew, in the beginning of the 1970 the University of Priština was established as a separate institution[2] to address the demands of the local population for better educational faculties. Its foundation came in conjunction with an increased package of degree of cultural and, eventually, political autonomy for the Albanian-majority province.
It had four faculties: philosophy, law, engineering and medicine. All of the faculties were doubled to ensure exact equality between the two peoples, with duplicated teaching, library stock, administration, publishing and journals. Rather than being a conventional bilingual university, it was described as being more like two universities under one roof.[16]
The university attracted controversy almost from the start, with the Serbian Minister of Education later accusing it of being one of several "centres of actual and theoretical separatism".[39] As early as 1971, there were Serb and Montenegrin protests against the opening of the university. According to a Kosovo Communist leader at the time, the university had faced strong political opposition from the Serbian Communists (even though it had the support of Josip Broz Tito), "as the founding of the university was taken as a harbinger of autonomy for Kosovo."[16]
In the 1970s, the university was expanded rapidly with respect to Albanian language instruction,[2] from 7,712 students in the academic year 1969/70[40] to 43,321 in the academic year 1980/81,[40] its highest student population ever.[40] Ideologically, it acted upon strengthening of Albanian national conscience.[2] The university was the scene of repeated Albanian nationalist protests. In 1974, at least 100 students were arrested for participating in nationalist protests.[41]
The university was the starting point of the 1981 Kosovo demonstrations[2] in demand that Kosovo become a republic,[2] separate from Yugoslavia, and join Albania.[42] Although the authorities again blamed the protests on nationalist radicals, there were a number of contributing factors. Kosovo's cultural isolation within Yugoslavia and its endemic poverty resulted in the province having the highest ratio of both students and illiterates in Yugoslavia. A university education was no guarantee of a successful future; instead of training students for technical careers, the university specialized in liberal arts, in particular in Albanology, which could hardly secure work except in bureaucracy or local cultural institutions, especially outside of Kosovo. This created a large pool of unemployed but highly educated, and resentful, Albanians – prime recruits for nationalist sentiment. For example, leader of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army, Hashim Thaci, first came to prominence as a student radical at the university.[43]
In addition, the Serb and Montenegrin population of Kosovo increasingly resented the economic and social burden incurred by the university's student population. By 1981, the University of Pristina had 20,000 students – one in ten of the city's total population.[43]
The demonstrations started on 11 March 1981, originally as a spontaneous small-scale protest for better food in the school cafeteria and improved living conditions in the dormitories. They were dispersed by police but resumed two weeks later on 26 March 1981. This time, the police used force to disperse a sit-in by Albanian students in a dormitory, injuring 35 people and arresting 21. The violence provoked a mass uprising, with tens of thousands of people demonstrating across Kosovo. The federal government imposed a state of emergency and rushed up to 30,000 troops to the province. Riots broke out and the Yugoslav authorities used force against the protesters, killing many of them (up to 300, according to Amnesty International).)
Following the demonstrations, the university faculty and students were purged of those deemed to be "separatists". 226 students and workers were tried, convicted and sentenced to up to fifteen years in prison. Many Albanians were purged from official posts, including the president of the university and two rectors. They were replaced with Communist Party hardliners. The university was also prohibited from using textbooks imported from Albania; from then on, the university was only permitted to use books translated from Serbo-Croatian. The demonstrations also produced a growing tendency for Serbian politicians to demand centralization, the unity of Serb lands, a decrease in cultural pluralism for Albanians and an increase in the protection and promotion of Serbian culture.[43] The university was denounced by the Serbian Communist leadership as a "fortress of nationalism".[16]
During the 80s, the university however continued to back requests for change of Kosovo's status[2] and spread ideology of Enver Hoxha and Maoism,[44] and propagate creation of Greater Albania,[44] mostly due to Albanian professors from Tirana.[44] Meanwhile actual work of the university was practically impossible due to frequent Albanian demonstrations[2] and political infighting between Serbian and Albanian members of its administration.[2] Sometimes, entire dormitories were shut down and years disrupted because of the demonstrations.[2]
The Serbian politician and later national leader Slobodan Milošević successfully exploited the Kosovo issue to propel himself into the Presidency of Serbia in 1989. At the end of the 1980s, at his doing, the constitution of Serbia was changed and the autonomy of Kosovo curtailed.[45]
Management of provincial universities, University of Priština and the Novi Sad, located in Vojvodina, was transferred from provincial authorities to Belgrade. The University of Priština was a key target for repression. As with other education in Kosovo at the time, the University's existing curriculum was abolished and replaced with a new one devised in Belgrade. Albanian lecturers and students widely refused to accept the new curricula and educational changes imposed by the Serbian Parliament, also protesting against the ongoing curtailment of Kosovar autonomy in general. Consequently, many Albanian lecturers were accused of breaking the Serbian education laws, dismissed and replaced by Serbs. In some cases dismissal was done under other pretexts (such as, for example, "for leaving the faculty building during working hours").[16] The Rector, Professor Ejup Statovci, was imprisoned after writing a letter asking for the university buildings to be returned to the Albanian faculty and students.[39] His Serbian replacement, Professor Radivoje Papović, explained the official reasoning for the changes made at the University:
Papović was seen by Albanians as a high-profile symbol of Serbian oppression in Kosovo; on 16 January 1997, he was seriously injured in a car bomb attack by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) member Nait Hasani.[46]
The composition of the student body also changed drastically. A new enrolment policy was implemented which – in theory – provided for a one-to-one ratio between the two language groups, i.e., 1,580 full-time students in each, commencing from the start of the 1991–92 academic year. In practice, Albanian language students boycotted the education since,[2] reducing the Albanian student body from 27,000 to nil. This was welcomed by many Serbs, as funding would now be spent only on non-Albanian students. Remaining Albanian professors have continued to work for a while,[2] however after year and a half of boycott, they were technological surplus[2] and were mostly dismissed. Those who were needed have been offered to work on education in Serbian language,[2] however because of threats and pressure directed to them by other Albanians very few remained.[2] Thus, Albanians have effectively shut themselves out of the university entirely: there were no Albanian-speaking staff to teach the students, and no Albanian-speaking students for the staff to teach.[16]
The Albanian-language education then continued in private facilities as part of the unofficial parallel shadow state, a self-declared Republic of Kosovo that had been established by Kosovo's Albanians, enabling the education of some 30,000 Albanian students to continue.[16] The university also called itself the University of Prishtina, was financed by Albanian diaspora and parallel tax system[2][47] and existed without any connection to the academic system,[2][47] whis led to worsening of the quality of education (for example, students of medicine had no access to clinics, laboratories or other necessary equipment[2][47]). However, the university professors have reported about a large number of graduates, magisters and doctors:[2] the university issued graduation certificates in the name of the Republic of Kosovo which were not recognized by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. State security forces subjected the parallel schools to repeated raids and harassment.[39]
In the second half of the 1990s, Government of Serbia started negotiations with Albanian leaders about the university,[2] which in 1998, as the crisis in Kosovo was building, led to an agreement between the Serbian authorities and Kosovo Albanian leaders to permit the return of Albanian students to the university.[48] According to the agreement between Slobodan Milošević and Ibrahim Rugova, Kosovo Albanians should get control over 60% of the University campus, Serbs 35% and Turks 5%.[49] Three buildings of the university were turned over to the Kosovo Albanians on 15 May 1998. However, Kosovo Serb protesters staged violent protests against the transfer and eventually had to be evicted by government forces.[50] The buildings were extensively devastated, with furniture and equipment deliberately vandalized as to make them unusable.[15]
The Kosovo War of 1999 completely disrupted both the official university and its shadow counterpart. After issuing of the Resolution 1244 and coming of Kosovo Force (KFOR) most of the staff and students have fled from Kosovo in early June 1999;[2] by August 1999, only two months after the war's end, the Serbian population of Pristina had fallen from 40,000 to under 1,000.[51]
The Serbian university abandoned Pristina in September 1999[8] and its faculties were then relocated to various cities in and near Kosovo.[2] The Faculties of Medicine, Agriculture, and Natural Sciences and Mathematics were relocated to Kruševac;[2] of Law and Philology to Vranje;[2] of Teacher Training and Physical Culture to Leposavić;[2] of Arts to Varvarin;[2] of Economy and Philosophy to Blace;[2] and of Civil Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Mechanic Engineering and Electrotechnics to Kosovska Mitrovica.[2] Meanwhile, the Albanian university moved into the Pristina campus university buildings[2][52] in late 1999, and resumed instruction under the name of the University of Prishtina; the university archives were destroyed, with books and other documents in Serbian thrown out of the buildings and burned[2] (in contrast, any pre-1989 archives were preserved[2]).
At the same time, in parallel, the education at the exiled Serbian university proceeded in very harsh conditions, without adequate buildings, staff, student housing, funding or literature.[2] In 2001 the faculties were returned to Kosovo, but not to Pristina; rather, to a northern Serbian-populated region.[44] Faculty of Philology merged into the Faculty of Philosophy, and faculties of Civil Engineering, Mining and Metallurgy, Mechanic Engineering and Electrotechnics into the newly founded Faculty of Technical Sciences. Up to 2008 the conditions were drastically improved. According to the Albanian analyst Bajram Krasniqi, "[Serbian] University left Pristina without a single book, and now it has hundreds of thousands books, more than 10.000 students, about 800 teachers, it's starting publishing newspapers,[53][54] it's opening a radio-station...."[55] The culturally and linguistically polarized University communities have resisted efforts to re-unite the Serbian and Albanian faculties.[56] In 2002, UNMIK recognised its dual existence as University of Prishtina and the University of Mitrovica.[5]
Outside observers have noted that this ongoing dispute over the fate of the national education system parallels the greater debate over the future of Kosovo itself, with the two sides seeking to establish their own rival, parallel visions, rather than combining through compromise and consensus on a shared approach.[57][58] According to a report issued by the OSCE, "there has not been any sign of genuine tolerance or attempts to find a common ground between the Kosovo Albanian and Kosovo Serb communities regarding the consolidation of their educational system."[16]
Since 2001, the University of Prishtina has organized an annual summer university that has attracted numerous professors, lecturers and students from abroad. The 2007 ISU hosted 400 students, 250 from Kosovo and 150 international participants from the Balkans, Western Europe and elsewhere. In an intensive three-week program, students are offered a variety of 15 classes, may participate in a series of public forums as well as other events organized by the university and its partners.
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| a. | ^ Kosovo is the subject of a territorial dispute between the Republic of Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo. The latter declared independence on 17 February 2008, while Serbia claims it as part of its own sovereign territory. Its independence is recognised by 86 UN member states. |
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