Roma pupils during a lesson in Gnjilan Photo: Herbert Heuß

Knowledge is power - at least it is a prerequi-site to overcome helplessness. The aim of the few Roma intellectuals who were left in the young Yugoslavia after the defeat of fascism, was to enable Roma children to overcome ignorance and illiteracy. Early on, schools were either dominated by Serbs or Albanians, both trying to educate according to their beliefs.

Roma children attended Serbian, Albanian and Turkish schools. Soon, the first Roma teachers had graduated and started to teach, like Ragip Jasharaj, who taught English and literature after gradating from the pedagogical college "Devdet Doda". At this college the first Roma lecturer, Prof. Ibrahim Elsani, taught psychology and Albanology.

Since the 1980s, programmes in Romanes were produced by Roma journalists and broadcast by radio- and tv-stations in Pristina. When the conflict between Serbs and Albanians escalated in Kosovo after 1989, and Belgrade made Serbian curricula obligatory for the whole of Kosovo, the Albanians responded with boycotts and established independent schools.

Roma teachers, who until then had taught Serbian, Albanian and Roma children at the same time, now had to take sides. People like the Roma teacher Ragip Jasharaj, who opposed this new apartheid, were threatened by both sides. Ragip Jasharaj then had to leave his teaching position, and he fled to Germany.

Ragip Jasharaj with his class 8a at the school "17 November" in Istok Photo: Archive Jasharaj

In the 1970s, the first lessons in Romanes were offered to Roma children in Kosovo. The text books used then had been written by the Roma linguists Shaib Jussuf and Marcel Corthiades. At the same time, authors started to produce literature in Romanes and Roma authors like Cevat Gashi worked as teachers.

Roma children whose parents did not participate in the separatist movement, were not allowed to attend Albanian schools; did they want to enter Serbian schools they were graded down because they only spoke Albanian. In one case a Muslim pupil was told, "if you cross yourself, you are welcome."