At the end of June 2024, Mayor of the Municipality of Prishtina Përparim Rama appeared in a video recording of the installation of digital white boards in classrooms. In the video, he announced that, in addition to equipping schools with these boards, the municipality is also introducing full school days [as opposed to operating in morning and afternoon shifts]. The mayor emphasized that students who stay home due to illness are also being provided with access to school resources. He stated that these measures will help to achieve an international standard of education. According to him, Prishtina is being transformed.

Starting in September 2024, Prishtina plans to implement full school days in five schools: Faik Konica, Xhemail Mustafa, Model School, Green School and Nazim Gafurri. This model will only be implemented for students in first through to fifth grade. The decision was made primarily due to students’ poor performance in the PISA test.

According to Jehona Lushaku Sadriu, the Director of Education in Prishtina, the short school day was the main reason for the poor results. To address this, Prishtina plans to extend school hours to seven hours daily. This change won’t affect the core curriculum but will add time for extracurricular activities tailored to students’ interests. So, art, coding, sports, along with the introduction of smart boards and more hours for these activities, are expected to enhance the performance of students who scored poorly on the PISA test.

The lack of dedicated laboratories for chemistry, physics and biology, the absence of budgets for trips and excursions for geography and history teachers and the lack of funding for concerts, gallery visits and exhibitions are not considered problems.

The situation for language teachers is even more concerning and their role is often overlooked. The general discourse on education tends to downplay the importance of languages and related fields. The PISA 2022 statistics show that students’ reading scores are among the lowest of all participating countries.

Xhevdet Doda — a high school in motion

Are the disappointing results due to students not having long enough school days, or because the entire education system is presented as effective while it is actually deficient?

A pilot project for full-day schooling began in 2015 at several schools in the capital but failed due to inadequate conditions, including a shortage of schools and staff. Today, the plan involves relocating several schools, including the Xhevdet Doda gymnasium. This relocation effort is accompanied by the distribution of 175 smart boards across Prishtina’s schools. It seems that merely providing these smart boards is considered a sufficient measure to implement full-day schooling.

The Xhevdet Doda gymnasium, known for its focus on natural sciences, will relocate once again. Founded in 1971, this iconic institution was originally located in the city center, where the Cathedral of Mother Teresa now stands. At that time, it served the nearby neighborhoods of Ulpiana, Dardania, Bregu i Diellit and Qafa.

Beyond its prime location, Xhevdet Doda played a crucial role in the lives of Prishtina’s youth, becoming a central hub not only for education and knowledge but also for the cultural life of the small capital within the former Yugoslav Federation.

In the late 1980s, just before the federation’s dissolution, Serbian police patrols created a pervasive atmosphere of fear. Despite this, high school students in Prishtina gathered at Papillon, formerly located at Kurrizi, where they enjoyed coffee and ate banjalluqki, nodding their heads to the sounds of classic rock.

In 1989, after the removal of the autonomy guaranteed by the 1974 constitution and the subsequent ban on education in Albanian, Albanian students were forced to attend classes in private spaces and makeshift schoolhouses. Amid the insecurity and violent measures of the 1990s, the teachers and students of the Xhevdet Doda gymnasium broke down the door of their school and reclaimed it.

The return of the gymnasium to its original location did not last. In the 2002-2003 school year, authorities decided to vacate the gymnasium to make way for the construction of the Mother Teresa Cathedral. Consequently, the students were relocated once again, this time to the Ali Sokoli High School of Medicine where they shared benches, chairs, restrooms, corridors and classrooms with students and teachers.

In 2005, construction of the cathedral began. The old school, a building of great symbolic importance for the people of Prishtina, was demolished in 2008 to make way for the new cathedral. Amid controversy surrounding the school’s demolition, the new cathedral was consecrated on September 5, 2017. This date coincided with the 20th anniversary of Mother Teresa’s death and was one year after she was made a saint by Pope Francis.

In 2010, a new facility was built in the Lakrishte neighborhood for Xhevdet Doda’s students and teachers. They embraced this as a new beginning. Since 2011, students, teachers and technical staff have worked together to make the building in Lakrishte feel like a second home. They restored Xhevdet Doda’s identity, and the school once again became the most sought-after in the capital, attracting a long queue of applicants each year.

The same is expected to happen this school year, with another long line of applicants. However, a new issue has emerged as a major concern.

On July 10, 2024, the official Facebook account of the Xhevdet Doda gymnasium announced that prospective students must submit their registration documents at “the new facility located in Kalabri,” at the premises of the Specialized Mathematical High School.

Spokespersons, directors and delegates from the directorate of education in the municipality of Prishtina went to the gymnasium to discuss moving the facility but were met with resistance from the school’s teachers. At the end of June, over 45 teachers submitted a petition to the municipality opposing the school’s relocation. Despite rejecting the idea, the teachers saw social media posts from the municipal employees claiming that teachers had supported the developments.

The teachers’ only form of protest was to collect signatures and file complaints with the municipality, but it’s unclear how much attention this received. Meanwhile, the Xhevdet Doda gymnasium is operating with an acting director and has been without a permanent director since February. The acting director has not commented on the situation in the media, but the school’s social media account has asked students to submit their documents at the Specialized Mathematical High School in Kalabri. Meanwhile the teachers — the acting director’s own colleagues — are petitioning against it.

The Directorate of Education in the Municipality of Prishtina is moving the Xhevdet Doda school to Kalabri, claiming that its current spaces are needed by other schools to improve the quality of education. This relocation will negatively impact the gymnasium, affecting both the number and quality of students it can accept, as the school’s location plays a crucial role in a student’s decision to attend. Over the past decade, this high school has consistently ranked among the best in the capital, both in terms of its student body and the quality of its teaching. But the school is tired from continual relocation.

The wheel is considered one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind — possibly the most important. Its integration into various mechanisms revolutionized transportation. It enabled the rapid development of global transport and has led us to believe that we can move anything efficiently and easily.

When the Sumerians invented the wheel in the fourth millennium B.C., they had no idea it would one day be used to transport everything. They simply saw it as a way to ease the burden of farmers and manual laborers, who lived difficult lives. But I don’t think that the Sumerians could have imagined that by 2024 A.D., wheels would be used to relocate a high school, efficiently and discreetly as a means of improving education. Perhaps if they had known this would be the outcome, they might never have invented the wheel.

Feature Image: Majlinda Hoxha / K2.0

Xhevdet Doda: High school on wheels

Prishtina’s iconic gymnasium is relocating once more.

Rina Asani

Xhevdet Doda: High school on wheels

Prishtina’s iconic gymnasium is relocating once more.

Rina Asani