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Life in Kosovo discusses private universitie’s accreditation

24 07 2008  This week’s Life in Kosovo show looked at the accreditation process of private universities and talked about how fair inspections are, which took the right to accept students from all private universities in Kosovo but one this year.

What will students graduating from private universities do now that their diplomas are not valid? How much did the report from the British Council for Accreditation affect the decisions of the Ministry of Education? How well defined are the criteria for accreditation? How long will it take for these problems to be solved? What is the reaction of the affected universities to the decisions of the Ministry?

To discuss these topics in the studio were:

Enver Hoxhaj, Minister of Education;
Ferdije Zhushi director of the Kosovo Accreditation Agency;
Muhamet Mustafa from the “Riinvest” University;
Rrahman Paqarizi from AAB Univeristy;
Dugagjin Popovci, expert on education issues;
Edmond Hajrizi from UBT University;

To the question of what he would suggest the graduating seniors and the students who were planning to apply to private universities prior to the Ministry’s decision do, Hoxhaj said that his Ministry is facing the same question.

He said he thinks that in a year the private universities will have another chance to satisfy the criteria for accreditation.

Popovci in turn said that, in general, he thinks the analysis made by the British Council for Accreditation is credible enough, and that their recommendations are worth working with.

But he said even though the evaluations were critical, the BCA has recommended that the universities be allowed to enroll new students anyway.

Paqarizi said that he would like to talk about the fate of the current students, the ones that were registered when these universities had licenses.

“We [the ministry and the private universities] are obliged to explain to [the current students] the position they’re in right now.”

He also said that he considered the Ministry’s decision to strip all but one of the private universities of their licenses as collective retribution, which disregard the recommendations of the BCA.

To the question of what the criteria for an institution to be called a university was, Hoxhaj said that it must have more than 3000 students and 5 departments but “being a university means more than physical measurements.”

He said that the recommendations of the BCA should be taken seriously and the decisions should not be seen as retribution.

When asked why the American University in Kosovo (AUK), in contrast to all other private universities, fulfills the criteria, even though the documentation it submitted was not complete, he said it was because AUK is supported by a powerful institution, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and because the graduating AUK students are able to get jobs faster, unlike the other evaluated universities.

When the fact that AUK does not have 3000 students was brought to attention, Hoxhaj said that the naming of the accredited institutions will have to be reconsidered.

Mustafa reminded the participants that the report from the BCA recommended continuing to enroll students. He said he did not understand though why the decisions were taken so hastily.

“The report came on Monday afternoon, and we heard the conclusions on Tuesday.”

He also said that the institutions that were audited, including his own, did not have enough time to check for technical discrepancies. “…because, in general, the report is positive.”

About the AUK, he said “let it function [with the help of] RIT. But it cannot be called a university. If we can not be called universities, neither can AUK.”

Hoxhaj in turn said that the decisions were not taken hastily. He said that what the government has asked is to freeze the process, to have no students enrolling in the first year, and, during 2008-2009, to all sit down and work together to fulfil the criteria.

He said that private universities must invest, not only for the sake of financial gain but also for the sake of their students.

He added that the public University of Prishtina will also take part in the second round of the accreditation process, and that it did not take part in the first one only because of time restrictions.

He concluded by saying that there should be quality, which will result in accreditation, and then licenses.

He said that there will be no double standards for the University of Prishtina.

Hajrizi said that he thinks the Ministry did not take into consideration the efforts put into the quality of education by the UBT. He added that the BCA had been satisfied with the quality UBT offers.

He also said that, “if the output of quality is employment, we [UBT] have 100% employment.”

He added that UBT diplomas are recognized internationally and the students who wanted to continue their studies elsewhere had no problem doing so.

Hajrizi denied that most of the professors at UBTT are part-time, as stated by the report from the BCA.

When asked again what the criteria defining quality are, Hoxhaj said that a university should be a research institution as well as an education one.

He also said that the ownership of the institutions should be clear to the public.

He added that a university should also have part of its staff working full-time.

The fourth criterion, he said, is that it should be clear how academic titles are used.

He also said that every university should have an office for internal evaluation, which should have reacted to the BCA.

Zhushi said that before applying for the second round of the accreditation process, the private universities should first address the recommendations of the BCA, to which Paqarizi answered “if you read the report, you would see that there are no concrete recommendations.”

Hoxhaj disputed this, reading out the recommendations, the first being “there is no long-term plan,” which caused a reaction from all the participants, saying it’s not true and that there are no parameters to measure something like that.

After Paqarizi said that Zhushi should not be taking part in this debate because the Kosovo Accreditation Agency did not have any role in the first round of accreditation, Zhushi answered that they did have a role and after September 1 this year the Agency will be fully functional.

Hoxhaj said that, when it comes to quality in education, his Ministry is interested to have everything under control.

Mustafa said that the quality of higher education should be increased but that the number of students in the public University of Prishtina cannot be increased, because the situation there is bad enough as it is.

He said that the students who were planning to apply to these universities will have to apply at some private unlicensed university in Macedonia or Albania.

Hajrizi restated that he just would like the criteria to be well defined, and to be told what should be improved because the current report doesn’t clearly define that.

Hoxhaj said that the law for higher education was approved in 2003, and the BCA made their recommendations based on Kosovo law.

He said that from September this year, the Kosovo Accreditation Agency will be responsible for the licensing. “But again, there will be more than 60 international experts that will come and scan the situation.”

He said that the Governments decision (to withdraw all licenses but one) was based on the BCA report.

Paqarizi said that the specific criteria to be called a university are fulfilled by the institution he represents, AAB, and he said that the general criteria are not an issue of naming, but of licensing.

Hoxhaj said that there are differences in the report from institution to institution.

He said his Ministry is interested that the institution take a stance towards the report, and when the issue of academic titles is resolved, each of them hand in a list of their professors and where they got their titles.

He said he is sure that even in 4 or 5 years not all universities in Kosovo will be able to give out academic titles.

Mustafa said that he would have no problem to change the name of “Riinvest” from “university” to “institute.”

He said he thinks the students would have no problem with that.

Hoxhaj said that one cannot brand a private house a “university” all of a sudden. He added that the decisions were not based on political views and parties, saying that “the British experts didn’t stay long enough in Kosovo to learn the names of political parties.”

Popvci said that the decision the Ministry has to make is whether universities are allowed to give titles to their own professors or not. He added that, with the current law, they can do that.

He said that the first step should be defining the standards and making them public.

The second step according to him should be a self-assessment from all the private universities, which should be considered by experts from the Kosovo Accreditation Agency.

Then the Agency should make its own assessment, which should be discussed with the university. Only then, he said, should the Agency make a decision.


Life in Kosovo is a co-production between Kosovo Public Television, RTK, and the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN. The show is broadcast every Thursday, starting from 20:15