Education in
Kosovo
Education is crucial for the socio-economic development
of the Western Balkans.
The results below are from the OECD’s Programme for
International Student Assessment (PISA) 2018 survey and
are representative of 15-year-old students in grade 7 and
above.
View results from Kosovo
(This page is best viewed on a desktop or laptop computer)
Reading
Maths
Science
Average scores
Regional and international educational performance
Kosovo performs lower than the regional
average in reading, maths, and science.
Education performance
in Kosovo is inequitable
Socio-economically advantaged students and
girls perform better than boys and
disadvantaged students.
Policies are needed to help all students
succeed.
An important driver, and
reflection, of inequity is
the tracking of students
into general education and
vocational programmes
52% of upper secondary students attend a vocational programme.
Roughly 88% of these students cannot
read proficiently
Selection into upper secondary programmes is
not equitable:
Boys are 2x more likely than girls
to attend vocational training
programmes
Boys
Girls
Disadvantaged students are 1.3x more
likely than advantaged students to
attend vocational training programmes
Advantaged
Disadvantaged
Accounting for gender and socio-economic
status in Kosovo results in a decline in the
performance gap between general educational
and vocational programmes.
This suggests that student background, in
addition to ability, can shape whether they
attend general education or vocational
programmes.
Educational spending in
the region is low
(data for Kosovo is missing).
More spending could contribute to higher results.
Educational resourcing
in Kosovo might be even
lower than in other
regional systems
Kosovo has the fewest computers per student
in the region
And the lowest share of computers connected
to the internet
Provision of educational
resources in Kosovo is
low and inequitable
Principals in Kosovo reported greater concerns
about resource shortages in:
Schools with more disadvantaged students
Vocational schools
These trends are also seen across Western
Balkans economies and OECD countries.
Kosovo
Western Balkans
Kosovo
Teaching practices
in Kosovo differ from
international benchmarks
Compared to the average across OECD
countries:
Kosovo tends to use more teacher-directed
instruction
And less adaptive methods that focus on
meeting students’ individual needs.
The practices commonly
used by teachers in
Kosovo are associated
with lower reading
scores
More teacher-directed instruction is associated
with lower reading performance and more
adaptive instruction is associated with higher
reading performance in
Kosovo
and throughout Western Balkans 5* and
OECD countries.
point score
*No data for North Macedonia
Teacher-directed instruction
Adaptive instruction