Cheerful noise of curious children, mixed voices with words in Macedonian and Albanian language-this is how a typical day in the integrated Macedonian-Albanian school in the village of Preljubiste looks like. A new project for cohabitation.
There is a bilingual school operating in the village Municipality Jegunovce in the Tetovo region, with 12 students in 1st grade in the Macedonian and 12 students in 1st grade in the Albanian class. After the classes in their mother tongue, the teachers start with the joint educational and informal activities. They ask the students in Macedonian and Albanian language: "Who will tell us what season is now?" The other teacher asks Simona the same thing in Albanian language. She replies in Albanian: "It is fall!" The same question has been asked again in Albanian language and was intended to Sara! She also replies in Albanian language: "It is fall!"
Integration and bilingualism according to experiences from Northern Ireland, Belgium and Switzerland
The school in Preljubiste is operating 2 months already with a donation of 170.000,00 Euros in its opening, as a project of the non-governmental organization "Nansen Dialogue Center" from Skopje. Saso Stojkovski, its Executive Director, explains why such school has been opened particularly in the Jegunovce Municipality: "The Jegunovce Municipality has been affected by the armed conflict in 2001, so in 2002, an ethnic division in the central school in Semsovo happened."
Burhan Ejupi is Director of the central school in the neighboring village Semsovo, which covers this one in Preljubiste, as well. He admits that the Macedonian students are not present there for several years and they have stopped attending the joint school facility as a consequence of the ethnic polarization after the conflict in 2001. The school in Preljubiste has been named after the Norwegian humanist and Nobel Prize Winner, Fridtjof Nansen. Director Ejupi says: "We have selected his name, because it is a symbol for peace, tolerance, better interethnic relations."
Saso Stojkovski from Nansen Dialogue Center emphasizes: "We are taking the integration as a model from the integrated schools in Northern Ireland, meaning that the school is a space where 3 programs will be realized, which will connect the parents, the teachers and the students. The programs for the parents are informal activities: dialogue, communication, cooperation and tolerance."
Back to the students' activities. The young Sara from the Macedonian class says: "We play, study, draw, color." Her friend Kaltrina from the Albanian class adds: "We celebrate the birthdays together."
A project for confidence and cohabitation with a broader social meaning for the whole country
What is happening in Preljubiste has a broader social dimension. The Mayor of Jegunovce Municipality, Toni Kocevski, says: "If we provide funds from the Ministry and from the local self-government and if the project proves to be really good, then we will try to apply it on the entire territory of Jegunovce Municipality where there are Macedonians and Albanians, i.e. bilingual teaching."
The Vice President of the Macedonian Government, Abdulaqim Ademi, says: "This project will contribute to relaxation of the interethnic relations, building good confidence between all ethnic communities who live in this Municipality and in my opinion, it will be successful. We, as a Government will certainly support such initiatives."
These initial, but encouraging experiences from the northwestern part of the country, show that Macedonia can leave the Balkans mud and bring its social and life reality closer to Europe.
Sveto Toevski
