Eleanor Pritchard, October 9 2000

Progress on minority higher education

Considerable progress was made this week on implementation of the minority language higher education proposals.

The OSCE's High Commissioner for National Minorities, Max van der Stoel, visited Macedonia again this week and met several top officials, including Education Minister Gale Galev, Prime Minister Ljubco Georgievski, Foreign Minister Aleksandar Dimitrov and Democratic Party of Albanians (PDSh) head Arben Xhaferi.

The talks focused on a donor business plan for the private institution.

Van der Stoel, who has made the realisation of the minority language institution something of a personal mission, told Foreign Minister Dimitrov that the new private university would be opened ahead of the next academic year. It will comprise five faculties and two centres, one for foreign languages and another for computing.

The land for the institution will be donated by the state, and construction costs are estimated at approximately USD 20 million. The first private university in Macedonia, its opening has been facilitated by the recently passed Higher Education Law, which recognises the existence of private institutions.

The working languages of the new institution will be Albanian, English and Macedonian-a clear move away from the Albanian-language institution initially proposed. This development is unlikely to be received warmly by hard-line Albanian nationalists, including the incumbent rector of the existing University of Tetovo, Fadil Sulejmani.

The newspaper Flaka quoted the PDSh's Xhaferi as saying that, based on preliminary assessments, the proposed project is "magnificent."