Business Environment

The Education of Macedonia – Interview with Ljubica Grozdanovska of BID Consulting, Macedonia

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Macedonia needs new schools – not PCs!

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Conducted: September 2007

Until recently and for five years, Ljubica Grozdanovska worked as a journalist in Macedonia’s best-selling daily newspaper, “Dnevnik”, covering issues on every level of education in the country. Three months ago, she became correspondent for the prestigious Czech e-zine Transition Online (TOL), again covering topics in education. Ljubica also works at the Faculty of Journalism in Skopje as a junior assistant. Recently, she co-founded “BID Consulting”, where she serves as a market analyst, business and PR consultant.

Q: Some observers say that education in Macedonia is being revolutionized – others that it is undergoing a chaotic upheaval. Can you identify for us the major changes (private education, financing, major legislation, etc.)?

LG: The extension of primary education to nine years, the provision of a PC to every student, the Law for Higher Education, and the construction of schools through public-private partnerships are some of the big projects in education announced by the current Government. However, their implementation in practice yielded varying outcomes, sometimes deviating from the expected ones.

The implementation of the concept of nine-year long primary education started on the first of September 2007. Consequently, two generations of pupils enrolled in the first grade: those five and a half years old and those seven years old. Parents were more than confused.

According to the revised Law of Primary Education, children who are going to be five years and eight months old by the end of the year have the right to enroll in first grade. Therefore, some children were forced to wait till the next school year just because they were going to reach the proper age only in January.

The Macedonian constitution doesn’t allow private elementary schools to be opened. Thus, parents can’t choose teachers. The school does it for them. Another irony of the model of the nine year long primary education is that the pupils who are seven years old this school year and are in the first grade, will, next year, skip the second grade and automatically go into the third.

In a situation in which many schools in the country have ruined roofs, no toilets, no secure electricity wiring, the Government last year announced a project “PC for every child”. Despite the grandiose announcement that computers will at first be installed in all high schools, at the beginning of this school year only three high schools were so lucky. By comparison, six or seven years ago, almost all the elementary and high schools in the country received a few PCs each: a donation from the Taiwanese Government. The equipment has soon become the target of robberies.

One of the major obstacles is that teachers – especially the elderly ones – are computer-illiterate. Another major problem is that in Macedonia, for a few years now, there is no model to measure the knowledge of students after they had finished elementary, or secondary school. Because of that, around 95 percent of the students that graduate from elementary education as well as from high schools, are straight A students. If this tendency continues, the predictions are that till 2010 all students in Macedonia will be straight A students.

3. Macedonia is a multi-ethnic country. How does its education system cope with this diversity (quotas, segregation, teaching in minority languages, etc.)?

LG: The constitutional right to study in one’s mother tongue (in Macedonia, students study in the Macedonian, Albanian, Turkish and Serbian languages) and the influence of the conflict in 2001 caused and still are causing segregation among students. If this right initiated the segregation, the conflict and the prejudices it gave rise to increased the division among students – between Macedonians and Albanians, and in the past two years, among Macedonian, Albanian and Roma students.

Parents are also guilty because they fear that their children are not safe in an environment which includes “others” and they pass on their fears to the children. This is especially obvious in the capital of Macedonia, Skopje and in the cities in the western part of the country, where the majority of the citizens are Albanian.

For example: if Macedonian and Albanian students attend lectures in the same school, they usually go in two shifts. There is segregation among teachers too, although they deny it in public.

Two years ago, the Ministry of education made changes in the history books. This caused the lecture model to be altered: Macedonian students learn about Macedonian national history, Albanian students – about Albanian national history. When time comes for the Albanian students to learn something about the Macedonian national history, then usually a Macedonian teacher does the teaching and vice-versa.

Since the last school year, there is also segregation among Macedonian and Roma pupils. For instance, a few weeks ago, nine mothers of Macedonian pupils refused to sign in their children into an elementary school in the city of Kumanovo because there were seven Roma pupils in that class. But, the pshychologist in the school and an NGO called “National Roma Center” managed to calm down the situation. This is not the only example. Roma students are being taught in the Macedonian language. There are no books nor teachers in the Roma language because their language is not recognized by the Macedonian Constitution.

In my opinion, the implementation of the teaching of religion in primary schools may cause the segregation among students to deepen. In this case, not only on an ethnic, but also on a religious basis. The Ministry of Education and Science plans to introduce the study of religion as a subject in the fifth grade and it gives two choices: pure religious teachings and the history of religions.

All studies and polls show that Muslims will probably choose pure religious teachings while Orthodox Christian pupils and others will opt for the history of world religions. The authorities don’t have a solution for the problem of ethnic and religion segregation among students. They may have some corrective projects in mind, for instance for Macedonian and Albanian students to study English together, but projects are time-limited by nature and definition.

4. Is the education system politicized? If so, in which ways, can you give some concrete examples?

LG:Way too politicized. A few days before the official start of the new school year, the mayor of one municipality in Skopje, who by the way is a member of the political party in power VMRO-DPMNE, expelled all the teachers whom he suspected of being members of the opposition party SDSM, thus allowing him to employ his own people.

The same thing is happening with school principals. As soon as there is a change of the political parties in power, the principals who are not with the “right” political orientation, who are not aligned with the newly formed Government, usually are afraid that they will lose their jobs.

Even more ironic is the fact that if they are not fired or changed, school principals are willing to praise the political party in power and to deny that they are members of the opposition party. In this case, they publicly extol the reforms that the Government is conducting.

Unfortunately, it usually is necessary to obtain a political party’s membership card just to be employed in the public sector, schools included. In September, the Ministry of Education is granting approval for new employment in the schools. Until the middle of September, only approvals for Albanian teachers are granted, while approvals for Macedonians are granted much later. This especially was the case in many towns in the western part of the country.

Political orientation usually determines even which schools are going to be renovated, and where new ones will be built. Unofficially, on the list of school buildings to be repaired there are more schools from the western part of Macedonia, where the majority of the population are ethnic Albanians. The State University in Tetovo for example was granted the status of a budget financed university because of political reasons: it’s an Albanian University. In Tetovo, by the way, there is one more university: the Southeastern Europe University. The fourth University, the one in Shtip, is also a political solution.

Conference Addressing the Criminalization and Prevention of Domestic Violence

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Domestic violence has become a growing problem for women, with 50 percent of female homicides being caused by intimate partner violence. Many women avoid divorce, because of financial dependence; however, this does not have to be the case. Contact a Phoenix divorce and domestic violence attorney from the Law Offices of Scott David Stewart at (602)548-3400 to learn more about your legal options.

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According to findings in a 2000 U.S. Department of Justice survey,Conference Addressing the Criminalization and Prevention of Domestic Violence Articles an estimated 4.5 million physical assaults are committed against United States women by intimate partners annually. A 1998 survey by The Commonwealth Fund says that nearly one-third of American women report being raped or physically assaulted by a current or former boyfriend at some point in their lives.The Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence (AZCADV) defines domestic violence as “a pattern of behavior that includes the use or threat of violence and intimidation for the purpose of gaining power over another person.” This kind of violence is not limited to physical abuse and may also be characterized by sexual, economic, emotional or verbal abuse, as well as isolation or control. There are 2.51 domestic homicides of women per one million population in Arizona. AZCADV says, based on newspaper reports, 106 people died in Arizona in 2000 as a result of homicide related to domestic violence.Domestic Violence Victims More Than Faceless StatisticsFox Phoenix reports that earlier this year, Jamie Gallegos was shot to death by her ex-husband, who later killed himself. Gallegos had gotten remarried just two months earlier and was dropping off her two sons, ages 7 and 10, at church when her ex-husband, apparently fueled by jealousy, killed her.Eighty-five percent of domestic violence victims, like Gallegos, are women. Additionally, in 2000 in Arizona, 22 perpetrators committed suicide following a domestic violence-related homicide. Although women of all socio-economic groups experience abuse, women in poverty may face particular challenges in leaving abusive relationships because they lack the resources necessary to support themselves and their children.The U.S. Department of Justice says that more than half of female victims of intimate partner violence lie in households with children under the age of 12. Of the incidents known to police, three percent of spouse and intimate partner assaults also include a child abuse victim. Additionally, every year, thousands of American children witness intimate partner violence in their families.Domestic Violence Prosecutions: A Fresh Look at Routine ResponsesSarah Buel is a domestic violence survivor. The former prosecutor and national leader in programming to aid battered women and children, she is currently the faculty director for the Diane Halle Center for Family Justice. Buel was seated on the seven-speaker panel of the recent conference held at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. The conference, titled “Domestic Violence Prosecutions: A Fresh Look at Routine Responses,” pooled domestic violence prosecutors, national scholars and law professors to discuss new challenges and potential solutions in the field.Buel said the conference represented an opportunity to engage scholars and practitioners alike in planning the next steps in the criminalization of domestic violence. These issues did not exist nearly four decades ago, when society first began talking about violence in the home, says conference co-organizer Carissa Byrne Hessick. She says scholars today are challenging whether the modern tactics of prosecutions are particularly effective in combating domestic violence.Historically both underreported and underprosecuted, domestic violence has proved to be an especially intractable problem, despite modern criminal justice innovations such as mandatory arrest and no-drop prosecution policies. The methods for decreasing violence have garnered intense disagreement and debate. Hessick noted the potential for increased conflict in Arizona, with regard to the prosecution of domestic violence on tribal lands. The conference created the unique opportunity to bring practitioners and academics together for discussion. Securing a Safer Future for VictimsThe Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) says that domestic violence affects more than 32 million Americans per year. A woman is physically abused in America every nine seconds, and domestic violence accounts for over 50 percent of female homicides.Buel urges that instead of asking victims why they stay or cooperate with their partner, the community should reach out to them. There are options for victims, even if they feel financially bound to their abusers. After the victims have secured a safe environment for themselves and any children involved, they may wish to seek a protective order, file for divorce or speak with a counselor. Domestic abuse victims should seek shelter in a safe place and then contact a skilled lawyer. A lawyer can file for a protective order to keep the abuser at a distance; a family law attorney can also help protect the economic interests of a battered spouse both in the property division and in any demand for child or spousal support.
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