ABSTRACT
Serbian–Albanian confrontation over the constitutional status of Kosovo directly concerned jurisdiction over the education system in the province. Control over Kosovo’s schools and university was, to Serbs and Albanians alike, paramount to the protection of their own national identity. In the context of national confrontation in Kosovo, this implied Serbs trying to obtain powers over Kosovo’s education while bringing about the educational unification of Serbia, and Albanians trying to retain educational authority in the province. These opposed aims led to the pursuit of two national educational policies in Kosovo. This pursuit was clad in the rhetoric of legalism. Each national group ascribed legality only to acts it considered as safeguarding its respective sense of nationhood. Albanians demonstrated their opposition to the Serb-driven constitutional changes in street protests in Kosovo. Denying legitimacy to all legal acts adopted by Serbia pertaining to education, they continued to exercise the rights they were entitled to under the 1974 constitution. The curbing of Kosovo’s autonomous powers in 1989 ended any form of Serbian–Albanian cooperation in the field of education in Kosovo. It marked the emergence of two parallel sets of laws on which two, legally and spatially separate, national education systems in Kosovo would be based. This chapter first explores a legal(istic) aspect of Serbian–Albanian confrontation and relates it to their respective visions of national identity. This is followed by an account of the introduction of complete spatial segregation at all levels of Albanian-language education in the province. The chapter concludes by analysing a debate within the Albanian community about a future course of action in education after their exclusion from educational premises in Kosovo.
