Inclusion of Students from Non-Majority Communities in the University of Prishtina

The aim of this publication is to offer a review of the affirmative actions for non-majority communities and their effects throughout years. This review shall contain basic statistics, an effective analysis of the affirmative action measures implemented so far in higher education and concrete proposals for increasing the inclusion of non-majority communities in the UP (Roma, Ashkali, Egyptians, Gorani, Serbs, Bosniaks and Turks). Also, the research aims to show what is the effect of the quota and other factors, such as knowledge of Albanian language, unfavorable economic conditions and other conditions that play a role for the inclusion or non-inclusion of non-majority communities youth in the UP. In more concrete terms, the report shall explain what the figures on the education of communities mean throughout the academic years and explain the reasons for these results, whether they be economic, lack of advanced knowledge of Albanian, lack of interest or completely other reasons.

Some of the questions we tried to answer in this report are:

• Is the 12% quota fulfilling its function?
• What are the faculties/majors of greatest interest to students from non-majority communities? What are
  the faculties/majors with the lowest number of students to be admitted by non-majority communities?
• Which are the faculties/majors with the largest number of graduates in relation to the number of
  admissions?
•  What are the communities with the largest number of admitted and graduated in different faculties of
  UP?
• What do the deans of the faculties think about the 12% quotas for non-majority communities? Should
  the vacant seats be filles with Albanian students?

For the needs of this research we analyzed the laws, regulations and relevant decisions and then sought access to public documents and data form the managements of all academic units in the UP as well as from the Rectorate and the central administration. Furthermore, we conducted meetings and interviews with Deans of UP Faculties, with Mr. Xhavit Rexhaj, Deputy Minister of Education and Science (MASh), with Mr. Naim Gashi, Director of the Kosovo Accreditation Agency (AKA), and so on. The main restriction during this research was the fact that some academic units did not provide their data as well as the lack of response from parliamentary committees, namely the Committee on the Rights and Interests of Communities and Return and the Committee for Education, Science and Technology, Innovation, Culture, Youth and Sports to our requests.