[The Trepça technical school] started the school year ‘94–‘95 in a private house in the Bajr neighborhood, and that’s when the police intervened…It was the 15th of December. It was a cold day, a day with thick fog, very thick fog. While coming to school, the students noticed the police circling around. That house had a yard surrounded by a wall, we came out and closed the gate… But they climbed the wall, entered the yard, and went straight into the classrooms… I remember that they mistreated me in front of the students…Whatever they found on the desks, they threw into the stove, those were iron stoves, and they burned it. They made the students write their symbols on the board. And then, at some point, they let them go. I was savagely mistreated in the hallway… They destroyed the classrooms, they even knocked over the stoves, stoves that were still lit. Before they let me go, they made me grab the lit stoves, I am telling the truth, until my hands were burned.
After the abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989 and the systematic exclusion of Albanians from public institutions under the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the 1990s saw the emergence of a parallel education system. With Albanian-language schooling banned, home schools, organized in private houses, basements, and improvised spaces, became a vital form of resistance and survival. Teachers, parents, and students worked collectively to keep education alive in the face of state repression. These grassroots efforts were not only about teaching, but also about preserving cultural identity and asserting political agency. The oral histories of those who taught and learned under these conditions reveal stories of resilience, fear, and everyday defiance.
Sami Rama
School principalBajram Shatri
Education expertThe first-grade class was sitting on the floor, learning the alphabet, writing their first letters on the floor. In Fushë Kosovë, for example, the situation was catastrophic. Those rooms would heat up quickly and get cold quickly. Then it would happen that to get to the classroom, one had to pass through the kitchen or hallway. The idea for home-schools was given by Halim Hyseni. I remember a journalist once told him, ‘What are you going to do there? They cook beans in that room,’ I’m simplifying here, ‘The meal is cooked there, students study there?’ Halim replied, ‘Then you tell me, where else should the students go to learn? Show me a place where food isn’t cooked and we’ll send them there.’
Fazli Hajrizi
EducatorIt’s interesting, to be honest, when both teachers and students were mistreated and [the police] would actually leave, we used to think that the next day, not a single student would show up. But, strangely enough, by the grace of God, everyone was there, no absences. The teachers, the students… of course, I can speak for myself, but also for others, it was enough just to know they were there. And they were close to us, meaning they were by our side. Then we’d calm down and continue the lessons.
[…] I mean, all the students were at school. The bell rang, it was time. Strangely, at the exact minute the bell rang, within three minutes, the entire school was surrounded. Luckily, we tried to stay calm and watched from the windows how they were acting and what was awaiting us, obviously. First, they took us to the third floor, or the second, I’m not sure, but the main thing is they formed two police cordons. Fortunately, the students weren’t mistreated. And among the 30 or 40 of us teachers, it was Professor Muharrem Peci who suffered the worst, he had very serious injuries.
Drita Kadriu
Director of Education in the Municipality of MitrovicaThere was constant pressure because, from time to time, for example, they would come to the schoolyard and ask, ‘What curriculum are you using? Who is the principal here?’ It was a form of patriotism, in a way, to say, ‘The principal isn’t here. We’re in class.’ But schools with only Albanian students had it a little easier than the schools in the city, where both communities were in the same building.
[…] When the schools were closed, the teachers started organizing classes in homes. Lower-grade teachers would take the students into their own homes, while teachers of higher grades, from sixth to ninth, as well as high schools, started organizing in home-schools, which was very difficult. This situation lasted for about six or seven months.
Vehbi Xani
EducatorWe had a front-line house in Lower Klina because we couldn’t use the high school in Skenderaj, since it was the main center here. I later went around schools as an advisor, since those were established a bit later. We held competitions, we organized quizzes, and we even won first place in the region. So, normal activities, even though at the end of such events, they would take us to the station, sometimes beat us, mistreat us, but they couldn’t stop us entirely.