Kiosk Universities-Out of Question

By Milazim Krasniqi
Estimates reveal that the number of private universities in Kosovo, taking into account the very aggressive, constantly in-the-face advertising for them, particularly by electronic media, is the highest as against all the other countries of the region.
Christened with all kinds of illustrious names and boasting qualities that leading world universities like Oxford or Cambridge would be envious of, the new private universities of Kosovo have become an integral part of Kosovo’s paradoxes. For the first time the ads for these universities are a serious challenge to the record that advertising of concerts by visiting Albanian Diaspora pop groups, has held for years. The prices commanded to attend these universities are another expression of Kosovo paradoxes, because they are mind-spinning for low budget families or the unemployed.
It appears that the Ministry of Education lacks any clear stand in relation to the aggressive advertising or the open examinations organized by these universities for student admittance in exchange for astronomical charges.
The liberalization of granting work licenses should be accompanied by the activation of an accreditation agency but this has not been done. However this is indispensable for the full and professional valuation of a school of higher education. The valuation, on merits, of the potential of each university to produce top level graduates; the valuation of the study programs and of the working conditions in these universities on the whole, is the only valid test that would indicate whether or not each of these universities offers adequate services to provide higher education. It is also indispensable that the branches opened adequately meet the requirements of the labour market and do not create disloyal contention between the private universities and the public University, because in this case, all you are doing is producing new contingents of unemployed. Following the successful elections that were held at the public University of Prishtina, the Education Ministry now has more time available to look into regulating the situation regarding the private universities. And this is more than urgent, because the machinery that churns out the advertising for the private universities, with unbridled competition and in very bad taste, runs the risk of upsetting the equilibrium of public university education. The truth is that Kosovo needs several private universities, staffed by a qualified professorship, with advanced study programs, it needs branches of higher schooling that the public university does not provide.
But Kosovo definitely does not need kiosk Universities which are only designed to replace the bankrupt supermarket or swimming pool complex businesses that sprung up like mushrooms after the rain all over the country and which later on went bankrupt and collapse because of dishonest competition. The aggressive advertising of private universities forewarn the same epilogue in this field too, if the required government measures are not adopted to lay down the rules of the game.