Mr Kurti visited a shared education partnership at Nettlefield and St Matthew’s primary schools in Belfast, talking with school children, teachers and principals about their experiences and the advantages of being in a shared education partnership. 

Professor Joanne Hughes, CSE Director, said:

"Queen’s Centre for Shared Education has a long history of working with Kosovo colleagues to support their development of an adapted shared education model. We were delighted to meet Prime Minister Albin Kurti and his team, to showcase the shared education journey in Northern Ireland. We were especially pleased that our meeting took place at the Nettlefield/St Matthew’s site, so they could see the partnership that has developed between schools in one of the most divided interfaces in Belfast."

Dr Edona Maloku, former Deputy Minister of Education in Kosovo and a Fellow at CSE, funded by the Social Change Initiative, remarked:

“I was very proud to have the Prime Minister of Kosovo and our Kosovo team visit Northern Ireland to see the work being done here in peace-building. I am particularly vested in strengthening the partnerships between our two contexts so that a model of Shared Education is locally tailored and piloted in Kosovo. It is an initiative we have been working on for a while now with our Northern Ireland collaborators, so getting the Kosovo government team to talk to the stakeholders and see the partnering schools in practice was a big milestone in this direction. There is much to learn and exchange between our two countries."

The Philosophical Limitations of Educational Assessment: Implications for Academic Selection offers a brief overview of the history of academic selection in the United Kingdom, and a review of evidence relating to its consequences. The book argues that the practice of using the results of contemporary high stakes tests to make important decisions about students involves logical and moral dilemmas that a conscientious educator cannot ignore. Furthermore, it is suggested that the nature of the moral dilemmas depends on the purpose and significance of the test. In the case of high stakes tests used for academic selection purposes, the book argues that, not only can the moral wrong be highly significant, but better solutions are within reach.

The Philosophical Limitations of Educational Assessment: Implications for Academic Selection (from Palgrave Macmillan) has received positive peer reviews, including one from Professor Alex Lautensach, University of Northern British Columbia, Canada:

“The book presents a convincing argument that high-stakes academic testing measures the wrong attributes and, on the whole, does more harm than good, especially in the context of academic selection. It places the onus on educators and on wider society to come up with better alternatives. The book is well researched, concise, to the point and extremely relevant to educators, caregivers, and school system administrators everywhere.”