The next meeting of the Academy Board was held

Vushtrri, June 19, 2017 - The Board of the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety (KAPS) today held its nineteenth meeting.
 
The meeting was attended by General Director of the Academy, Ismail Smakiqi, General Director of Kosovo Probation Service, Bajram Bujupi, who is also the chairman of the Academy Board, General Director of Kosovo Police, Shpend Maxhuni, Chief State Prosecutor, Aleksandër Lumezi, Chief Executive of Kosovo Police Inspectorate, Hilmi Mehmeti,  General Director of Kosovo Customs Bahri Berisha, Kosovo Correctional Service Representative, Burim Buleshkaj, Representative from Emergency Management Agency, Miran Demiraj, ICITAP Program Leader for Kosovo, Kimberley Riffe, ICITAP Senior Advisor at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Higher Management Program and Executive Management - Ms. Dr Perezic, Resident Advisor to the Twinning Project Mrs. Ritva Vähäkoski and Senior OSCE Counselor, Mrs. Shpresa Muharremi.

On the agenda of the meeting of the Academy Board was to determine the quotas for Public Security Institutions in basic bachelor studies for the academic year 2017-2018 at the Faculty of Public Safety at the Academy. After discussing and harmonizing the needs of agencies for numberof students in the academic year 2017/2018, the Board decided to allocate 65 seats for students as following: Kosovo Police 26 students; Kosovo Customs 5 students; Agency for Emergency Management 11 students; Kosovo Correctional Service 20 students; Kosovo Probation Service 1 students, and Kosovo Police Inspectorate 2 students.

At this meeting was also discussed the issue of setting minimum standards for admission and enrollment of students at the Faculty of Public Safety. Board members discussed changing policy on student admissions to the Public Safety Faculty by their agencies by proposing possible modalities for setting minimum standards for admission and enrollment of students at the Faculty of Public Safety at the Academy.

The link between the completion of studies at the Faculty of Public Safety with the interests of the Agencies and the investment that the Institution made in this process would have been better to be as the minimum standard "Return of Investment "


After discussions and proposals, the board decided that the admission of students to the Faculty of Public Safety for the academic year 2017/18 should be followed by additional student contracts with the relevant Agency for Investment Return , where the same student  is obliged to stay 6 years at the relevant Agency upon completion of the studies.

Also during the meeting, General Director Ismail Smakiqi informed the Board for several highly successful activities at Academy during recent months;

On 2 June 2017 the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety is a member of the Association of European Chambers of Firefighting Service. At the invitation of this Association, the Academy attended the Annual Conference of this Association held in Berlin.
The conference was attended by representatives of 20 European countries who unanimously voted for the membership of the Academy in this Association.

From this year as the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety (KAPS) is a member of CEPOL European Union Agency for Training and Law Enforcement (CEPOL), having signed the cooperation agreement that is working agreement with this organization. As is known, CEPOL is the European Union Police Training Organization, and recently also other law enforcement organizations.

The Academy participated in the Annual Conference of the International Association of Standards Directors and Law Enforcement Training (IADLEST) of the United States of America, on this occasion has received support in the field of creating different training scenarios based on the analysis of the training needs and readiness of IADLEST, accredited by the Academy as a Training and Higher Education Institution. Accreditation of the Academy by IADLEST would add to the reputation of the Academy (accredited by Independent Institutions of Kosovo) as a training and education institution for law enforcement.

As for the institutional accreditation process and the "Public Safety" bachelor study program at KAPS, Director Smakiqi informed the members of the Board on the visit of the Evaluation Experts Team appointed by the Kosovo Accreditation Agency (KAA), who stayed in Kosovo Academy for Public Safety (KAPS), for the purpose of collecting field information on the re-accreditation of the Bacheror Public Safety Study Program and Institutional Accreditation of the Academy.

On 30.05.2017, the Academy received the Draft Assessment Report with the specific questions and recommendations that the Academy has responded to. Director Smakiqi quotes a paragraph of this Draft Report concerning the Academy's top evaluation, namely the documentation and SER provided for the assessment, which states: "In this context, the authors thank the staff of KAPS, and in particular the  General Director, Mr. Ismail Smakiqi, for the preparation and full presentation of the SER and its annexes, which surpassed many other SERs so far in Kosovo and can indeed be as the model for the vast majority of other tertiary education institutions”.