Schoolbooks Perpetuate Kosovo-Serbia Divisions in Classrooms

Besides politically-related history, the new textbooks put more emphasis on the social and cultural impact of historical events. But Ibrahimi said that the country's textbooks still suffer from the use of nationalist rhetoric.

"There is still a tendency, although it's not that much present, towards a one-sided approach on an ethnic basis. There are many cases in which we see selective sources or historical processes as well as the inappropriate usage of terminology," he said.

The education system played an important role in Kosovo's pre-war political history, when it was divided along ethnic lines as tensions rose in what was then a province of Yugoslavia. Both Kosovo Albanians and Serbs removed each other's language and history from their curricula.

Serbia still maintains control over the education system in Kosovo's Serb-majority areas, where schools use the Serbian state curriculum, and history - particularly recent history - is taught differently.

At the Serb-run King Milutin primary school in the town of Gracanica, school books have arrived for free from Serbia for the new educational year. In the books, Kosovo is described as being part of Serbia, rather than an independent state.

One of the teachers at the primary school, who wanted to remain anonymous, told BIRN that "nobody is asking teachers in Kosovo if [the textbooks'] content should be in line with new developments.

"What they cook [in Belgrade], we should eat. There is no other option. Sometimes the textbooks are not compatible with the situation," the teacher said

But he was reluctant to say if he would work with Kosovo textbooks approved by the Pristina authorities.

Shkelzen Gashi, the head of Admovere, a Pristina-based organisation dealing with...