The National Council of Quality, NCQ, did not approve the accreditation of universities in Peja, Mitrovica and Prizren for the academic year 2019/2020, which means students from these three regions will not be able to sign up to various faculties of these public universities. 

With six votes in favor, and two abstaining from the vote, the NCQ board decided to approve a report of international experts, recommending that the University of Mitrovica Isa Boletini be withdrawn from the accreditation for the academic year 2019/2020.

The NCQ expert report recommended that the University of Peja Haxhi Zeka’s institutional accreditation for this academic year be withdrawn. The Peja university lost its accreditation also with six votes in favor.

The University of Prizren, named Ukshin Hoti, was given the same result and its accreditation withdrawn. 

International educational experts were involved in assessing whether the conditions within these public universities necessary to be accredited were met.

Institutional evaluation by experts is required under the Law on Higher Education in Kosovo, as well as the Administrative Instruction on Accreditation of Higher Education Institutions.

According to the expert report, the universities failed to provide adequate documentation to the NCQ throughout the evaluation process, with some “so preoccupied to present institutional practices in a public light, they copy and pasted from a different Kosovar higher education institution, and forgot to correct the name from the original document.”

Public universities can appeal the decision of the NCQ at the Kosovo Agency of Accreditation.

The three education institutions were all formed between 2010 and 2015 through a governmental proposal which was pushed for by Hashim Thaci, Kosovo’s prime minister at the time and the current president of Kosovo. 

BIRN also reported earlier this year about the failure of certain branches of the University of Prishtina to fulfill the criteria of NCQ with many programs whose accreditation was suspended. A total of 24 University of Prishtina programs failed to meet the criteria of the NCQ, cutting the number of its accredited programs to 122.