THE EDUCATIONAL POLICIES OF THE SERBIAN STATE TO THE ALBANIAN MINORITY IN SERBIA

Abstract

The right to be educated in mother tongue is considered among the most important human rights in the contemporary world. Such a right is guaranteed to the all world communities in spite of the state and international rights, regardless of the location, extent, and size of the community. Every state is obliged to respect and make possible the realization of the rights to be educated in their language to every minority within it, because the right to education in mother tongue is now considered a crucial tool for preserving and strengthening the cultural and ethnic identity, and vice versa, the non-implementation of these rights to certain communities implies the state's tendency towards these communities. Also, minorities are predestined that the educations in their language attend similar to their mother country, based on textbooks and curricula of the respective states, as such a right is guaranteed by international norms and conventions. But such a thing, very often faces a strong resistance from the states where these minorities are, because in these textbooks is reflected the history, culture and tradition of the past, which in most cases is a clash between identities and produce numerous value controversies between the parties. This situation is particularly reflected in some Balkan countries where ethnic minorities are not "bridges" between communities but are "quarrelsome" among communities. In such a situation is the Albanian minority in Serbia, who because of the conflicting past between the two nationalities, the Albanian and the Serbs, are victimized by preventing the right to learn their history, culture, tradition and their mother tongue. Thus the Serbian state, because of the past between the two nations and issues still open with the state of Kosovo, denies Albanians in Serbia using textbooks from this country. This form of approach reflects state policies on curricula and textbooks currently being implemented by the Albanian minority. In this paper we will explain the problems faced by the Albanian minority in Serbia in the field of education, respectively the problems of the lack of textbooks in Albanian language. We will present the causes and obstacles of the lack of school textbooks in Albanian language in Presheva Valley schools, strategies developed by various factors to solve this problem, implicated parties, legal rights issues and the possible solution of this problem.