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By: Ambassador Douglas Davidson
The history of the phenomenon known as ‘two schools under one roof’ offers
an instructive lesson in unintended consequences. It also offers an object lesson
in how a purely educational issue can unfortunately metamorphose into a political
one. It is a perfect example of why politics does not belong in the classroom.
It is now time for these schools to be unified. It is also time that all parties
understand that, by saying this, we are speaking only of legal and administrative
unification of schools. We are not speaking about unifying languages or curricula.
‘Two schools under one roof’ began with the best of intentions. They were seen
as a means of encouraging return by families with school-age children to areas
in which their nation had become a ‘minority’ during the war. Yet, although
the international community originally blessed this development, it always had
reservations about it. For one thing, by suggesting that pupils from all three
constituent peoples and the ranks of the ‘others’ should not attend school together,
it appeared to legitimise and institutionalise a form of segregation. For another,
by duplicating administrative and teaching staffs, complicating budgetary processes,
and creating yet another barrier to the modernisation of primary and secondary
education, it appeared wasteful.
Subsequent events demonstrated all too clearly that not only were these concerns
real, but also that “two schools under one roof” were in too many cases inherently
unequal in the educations they provided. Pupils and teachers of one or another
nation were required to use separate entrances or to attend in separate shifts;
they were denied access to some facilities, classrooms, and common spaces; and
they were exposed to flags, pictures on the wall, and other furnishings that
reminded them that they were barely tolerated interlopers in somebody else’s
school, not its rightful users.
It was not surprising, therefore, that the Council of Europe should have tasked
the authorities to eliminate all aspects of segregation and discrimination based
upon ethnic origins when it admitted BiH to membership in April 2002. BiH ministers
then signed up in November that year to an education reform strategy that required
that the authorities provide for “integrated multicultural schools free from
political, religious, cultural and other bias and discrimination”. In other
words, the education reform strategy envisioned the administrative unification
of “two schools under one roof”. The state-level Framework Law on Primary and
Secondary Education, passed unanimously in June 2003, did so as well. This law
led, in turn, to cantonal laws in the Federation in 2004.
Administrative unification is, therefore, now a clear legal imperative. The
courts have rejected all challenges to it. Nine months later, however, we still
have more than 50 “two schools under one roof” operating in Zenica-Doboj, Hercegovina-Neretva
and Central Bosnia cantons, though the overwhelmingly majority lie in Central
Bosnia Canton. These schools remain an object of political contention because
certain political parties have seen fit to make them one. They have succeeded
in creating the impression among parents, pupils, and teachers that administrative
unification also means the homogenisation of curricula and the subordination
of one or another of the official languages to the third. This is simply not
true.
It is obvious that some “two schools under one roof” work more or less harmoniously,
effectively, and equitably. But that does not mean that this post-war expedient
is acceptable. As has been proved in many countries where segregation based
on race, caste, nationality, language or religion has been outlawed, separate
can never really be equal.
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