PROMOTION OF CHILD RIGHTS IN THE FIELD OF EDUCATION

The aim of the project was to raise awareness on the situation of child rights in the field of education in Kosovo, by organizing joint monitoring actions of civil society organizations in cooperation with central and local authorities and capacity building of schools to contribute to this effort.

The project had two main components:

1. A system for monitoring and reporting the situation of children’s rights has been developed in close cooperation with MEST and local authorities. 30 schools from Prizren and pristina region were selected. In those schools the monitoring process actively involved school committees for the protection of children’s rights. Special attention has been paid to schools with significant numbers of ethnic minority pupils, disabled students and pupils from other groups in need. In addition, a control group of thirty schools has been selected that match the target school in many ways, also with the aim of monitoring the rights of the child in the field of education. After training of external observers and monitoring of schools, the monitoring action was carried out four times during the life of the project. Annual monitoring reports allowed comparison of results between the two groups of schools, with slightly better condition in the target schools due to the activities of school committees.
2. This action involved a lot of work with the child rights committees in Kosovo schools, which started with the creation or mobilization of existing committees, to continue building their capacities for monitoring action, and with awareness raising activities for their responsibility. In each target school, 2-3 teachers/parents were involved in the work with commissions, and they also benefited from the project’s capacity building activities.

Key results:

1. A system was developed for monitoring and reporting the situation of the child’s rights in the field of education.
2. Improved capacity of students to identify and address cases of violation of children’s rights in the education system.