In a conversation with education expert Dukagjin Pupovci, as part of the PIKË podcast, the publicist Veton Surroi has closely shared the experiences and strategic discussions of the political leadership of the late 80s regarding the creation of a parallel educational system in Kosovo, as a response to Serbian repression and the expulsion of Albanians from educational institutions.
Surroi said that the issue of education was one of the most important strategic decisions that was addressed in the Coordinating Council of Political Parties of Kosovo, led by Ibrahim Rugova, while education was taken as an area of responsibility by Fehmi Agani.
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Letter to the Reader — Why We're Asking for Your Support Contribute"Fehmi Agani insisted that education had to be preserved at all costs. He said: school is not an object, but a system – if we preserve the students and teachers, we preserve education," Surroi confessed.
He explained that he himself had been in favor of a tougher approach, to physically protect schools from usurpation, through the mobilization of parents and students. But this option was abandoned due to fears of Serbian repression.
"After the precedent with poison gas in Podujevo, the leadership feared that Serbia would use great violence in the event of mass mobilization," Surroi recalls.
In the absence of physical resistance, the model of “flying universities” was embraced, an idea borrowed from the Solidarnosc movement in Poland. This model was adapted to continue education in domestic conditions, while maintaining the educational contingent and the symbolism of resistance.
Surroi added that the leadership was aware that the quality of education would decline significantly, but at the time, this was a matter of collective survival, not simply educational.
