18. May. 2017. | 11:36

Accountability Sofa: Diploma verification

The mandate of the Commission for verification of diplomas issued by the University of Pristina temporarily settled in Kosovska Mitrovica is prolonged for another year, confirmed Ivan Tomic, the member of this Commission and the Director of the Office for Community Affairs during a debate in Mitrovica Social Club.

He pointed out that due to the snap elections in Kosovo, the process of verification will be prolonged as well, as it is unclear who will be the four members of this working group in the future. Regardless, as it was the practice, all of the interested citizens will still be able to apply for verification of the diplomas in ECMI offices in North Mitrovica, Ranilug and Gracanica, or directly to the Ministry of Education in Pristina.

“What we were a position to do at this given moment was only to suggest the prolongation of the mandate of the Commission without making the changes to the decree governing its work. This is why, at the moment, the decree does not allow the Commission to deal with diplomas issued in the period between 1999 and 2001. nor with the diplomas of high and upper schools” said Tomic.

He expressed hope that by 1st of September, concrete measures to expansion of the mandate of the Commission will be taken so that other graduates who were excluded from the process until now will also be able to verify their diplomas.

“According to the last data, out of 520 requests for verification of diplomas, 369 were approved”, stated Tomic.

The process of verification was defined by the government decree from December 2015. It allows the validity check of diplomas issued by the University of Pristina temporarily settled in Kosovska Mitrovica. After having their diplomas verified, the graduates of this University can apply for a job in Kosovo institutions or apply for state qualifying exam.

The process of verification is managed by the European Union Office in Kosovo and facilitated by non-governmental organisation European Centre for Minority Issues (ECMI) which acts as an intermediary between the government of Kosovo and the University of Pristina temporarily settled in Kosovska Mitrovica.

The role of the ECMI in this process was explained by Aleksandar Arsic who stated that the one-month deadline for this process is unrealistic as all of the necessary procedures cannot be done is such a timeframe which is one of the difficulties of the process. He pointed out the there is also a problem with notaries who refuse to certify the copies of diplomas as they interpret the act as the verification of the document itself.

“The notaries understood the process of certifying the copy of the document as the verification itself, which is not true. We at ECMI have taken steps to meet with the notaries, point out the problem and explain the government decree which allows them to do this. However, it is very difficult – they interpret it in the wrong way. This is why there is only one notary who will certify the copies of diplomas in South Mitrovica” said Arsic.

Graduates who are seeking to verify their diplomas have to submit a certified copy of the diploma and certification of the passed exams to their municipalities. The municipality sends the collected documents to a secretariat who then pass it on to ECMI offices.

This organisation returns the copies of the diplomas to the Faculties in order to verify the validity of the document and the educational profile of the applicant. The faculties then return the documents to ECMI who returns them to the Secretariat which then issues the confirmation that the document has been verified.

After this document is signed by the President of the independent commission, the applicants can obtain the proof of their educational profile valid before Kosovo institutions. The University of Pristina temporarily settled in Kosovska Mitrovica is no longer charging the fees for the graduates who request a certificate of passed exams for the purposes of diploma verification. Only the holders of valid Kosovo ID cards can apply for diploma verification.

Accountability Sofa discussions are organised as part of the project Provide sustainable framework for civic participation and democratic decision-making on local and central institutional level in Kosovo.

This grant is financed as part of the Democratic Society Promotion program (DSP supported by the Swiss Cooperation Office in Kosovo (SCO-K) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of (DANIDA), managed by Kosovar Civil Society Foundation (KCSF).

The full video of the discussion can be viewed on the following links: part I and part II.