In the psychology textbook of the 11th grade, among other things, also writes that “man`s brain is for doing whereas woman`s for talking.”
It doesn`t end here. For men, according to this textbook, it is more common to be more competitive, dominant and insisting, whereas for women, it is more common to be more anxious, depressed, have less self-confidence and get involved in verbal indirect aggressivity (e.g. spreading unreal rumors).
The sociologist Sibel Halimi, notes that girls and the boys undergo a traditional education starting with these textbooks, where their roles are divided based on their sex.
“These children, starting from the first grade, especially the girls, do not feel the equality, since the textbooks are those that legitimize and support this kind of narration, according to which, being a boy in this country is a biologic advantage,” she says.
Halimi added that starting from the textbooks, men are given more advantage of having authority, even on the body of women and girls.
But, Trina Binaku, a monitoring official at Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR) says many pre-university textbooks in Kosovo contain discriminating language, not just the psychology textbook.
“Even though they don`t have a scientific base, these textbooks create an idea that the women/girls and men/boys are biologically unequal, and they actually get used to fit to the social roles they have,” she says.
Binaku works for USAID (United States Agency for International Development), which has given YIHR a donation to revise pre-university texts, a project that started in August 2016. This is part of a project under the Engagement for Equity Program (E4E), which is supervised by The Advocacy Training and Resource Center (ATRC).
The starting point for the project “Youth participation in comprehensive education” was the impact that the education system has on youth, especially in forming their character and their position in society. The aim of this project was to deal with the prejudices and potential gender, patriarchal, and racist stereotypes in textbooks.
According to the first analyses in history, psychology, sociology, and biology textbooks, and other subjects as well, unsubstantiated data was found, which impacts gender and ethnic discrimination.
“‘Facts’ that have no footnotes, so they do not show on what research they are based, which of course puts in doubt the accuracy of the information. There are descriptions based on sexist and racist stereotypes, one-sided approaches toward certain historical periods, thus not providing full information … there are several other problems,” Binaku says.
In the 11th grade history textbook, for example, it is written that “only during the months of NATO bombings, the Serbian army killed around 15,000 Kosovar people, among them were many women, children and elders.” In the research project done by YIHR, it was discovered that victims from other communities were not included.
Binaku says that this information is incorrect. According to her, true data can be found in a research paper by Humanitarian Law Center.
“By their tireless fieldwork, they have identified 13,000 victims, around 10,000 of them were Albanians, the others belong to other communities who live in Kosovo; Serbian community, Roma, Egyptian, Ashkali and others,” she added.
According to the information gathered by Humanitarian Law Center, there were 13,548 people who were murdered, disappeared or fallen in battle from 1998-2000. Out of these, 10,820 were Albanians, 2,199 Serbian, and 529 individuals belonged to other ethnicities.
Avdi Gjata, a history teacher at “Xhevdet Doda” gymnasium in Prishtina, thinks that our historiography falls behind in both research projects and writing. According to him, this stagnation and inability to determine the real problems is due to the lack of people who have knowledge on this area.
“It would be nice to change these textbooks based on research projects, and make these changes starting from ancient times,” Gjata says.
Dukagjin Pupovci, chief executive of Kosova Education Center (KEC), says that the textbooks need to fit the new curriculum.
“Some of them need to be rewritten, in order to be in accordance with textbooks standards, some others should be revised and have additional information. It is important for each book to go through a filter and stop the practice of previous years, when the procedure of announcing the competition until the publication of the textbook finished within 4-5 months,” he says.
Pupovci also says that it is important that the textbook market be open for all publishing houses and all authors, in order to provide students with the best textbooks.
Once the project finishes, Binaku from YIHR hopes that the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology will take the suggestions for textbook revision seriously.
Even though KosovaLive tried several times to get a response from the official of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology regarding textbooks, it was in vain.
Njomza Berisha
