Kamenica, 5 June 2024
The Prime Minister of the Republic of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, together with the Ambassador of the United Kingdom in Kosovo, Jonathan Hargreaves and the Mayor of the Municipality of Kamenica, Kadri Rahimaj, had a working lunch with a group of experts from Northern Ireland and Kosovo who with their work contribute to the field of peace building through education.
Professors and researchers of the Queen’s University in Belfast and representatives of the Education Authority in Northern Ireland, in cooperation with the Municipality of Kamenica, are conducting a workshop with the school communities of this municipality to explore the potential of the cooperation of the separate educational systems. Based on good practices of educational interventions in Northern Ireland and a number of other countries with a history of conflict, the team consisting of Dr. Edona Maloku, Prof. Joanne Hughes, Prof. Tony Gallagher, Prof. Ruth Leitch, Dr. Gavin Duffy, Mr. Paul Close and Mr. Seamus Bradley, with the direct support of the Mayor of Kamenica, Kadri Rahimaj, aim to facilitate these sessions with teachers and school leaders of different communities in Kamenica to compile the basis of the intervention initiative known as the Shared Education Model.
The origin of Shared Education starts from Northern Ireland where for several decades different educational models have been tried that have aimed to promote reconciliation, promote mutual understanding and increase social cohesion. As an initiative already integrated into the Northern Ireland education system, shared education provides opportunities for children and young people, who would otherwise not have the opportunity to interact, to socialize with peers from different groups through regular contact and purposeful curriculum-based.
This model also enables children, young people and teachers/educators to form long-term relationships and friendships which often cross traditional boundaries and to build strong, supportive and interdependent links between participating schools, their families and their communities they serve.
In February of this year, as part of a visit to Northern Ireland, the prime minister visited the Nettlefield school in Belfast, to see closely and in practice the implementation of the Shared Education model. Through this model, which is applied in around 900 schools in Northern Ireland, students from different communities have the opportunity to learn and interact together in different activities that include sport, art and science. The seminars that are being held in Kamenica are the fruit of this visit.
Last modified: June 6, 2024