Director of the Department for Security and Public Safety, Edward t. Anderson and senior officer, Shpresa Muharremi from OSCE, visited Kosovo Academy for Public Safety
26.05.2020
Vushtrri, May 26th, 2020 - General Director of the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety, Ismail Smakiqi, accompanied by KAPS senior management staff, received a visit of Director of the OSCE Department for Security and Public Safety, Edward T. Anderson and the Senior Officer to this Organization, Shpresa Muharremi.
Mr. Anderson and Mrs. Muharremi were invited to participate in senior management meeting of the Kosovo Academy for Public Safety, in which meeting there continued preparations of the Academy on coming back to normality, respectively returning to the usual daily engagements of the whole Academy staff.
Director Smakiqi informed the guests about the activities in the Academy after 12.03.2020, when educational process of the Kosovo Police cadets and the Faculty of Public Safety students was terminated, as well as there were suspended all activities of the Academy scope.
In the following days, essential staff of the Academy has continued to perform daily assignments, while the management staff of the Academy was focused on activities related to processes of new national accreditation by Kosovo Accreditation Agency and the National Qualifications Authority and the international re-accreditation by IADLEST (USA) for 2021, respectively the activities that KAPS staff should complete in preparations during 2020. There are established all the planned working groups and there have been drafted initial drafts of the dynamics of engagements to be completed by these working groups. Lecturers of the Faculty of Public Safety have continued to conduct distance teaching to students. Online teaching for students of the Faculty of Public Safety was carried out in Google Meet and Google Classroom platforms, that have also been applied by other higher education institutions in the Republic of Kosovo.
Director Smakiqi informed the guests that the Academy, in order to continue realization of its mandate and functions during and after the period of pandemics COVID-19, has drafted a continuation plan that defines measures and protective phases for officials and its attendees, as well as formulation of various protocols by the officials of respective fields, with the aim to prevent spread of COVID-19 in the workplace.
Director Smakiqi also informed the guests about preparations of the Academy for continuation of “New Police Officer” Vocational Training of the 55th generation at AKSP, that started on 11.11.2019 and that was terminated on 12.03.2020 in the 18th week of training, in accordance with the decision of the Government to suspend educational activities to prevent pandemics COVID-19. Return of the cadets to the Academy will be carried out in cooperation with the Kosovo Police and in accordance with instructions of responsible institutions for prevention of pandemics COVID-19.
As regarding the continuation of educational process at the Faculty of Public Safety, it will be the same as the continuation of the educational process in higher education institutions in the Republic of Kosovo. For the time being, distance learning will further continue. Decision on continuation of the educational process at AKSP for students of the Faculty of Public Safety will be taken by the central institutions and KAPS will act in accordance with these decisions that will be applicable to all higher education institutions.
Director of the OSCE Department of Security and Public Safety, Mr. Edward T. Anderson, thanked Director Smakiqi for the detailed update on KAPS activities before and after the pandemics, evaluating highly the Academy's efforts to come back to normality, always respecting instructions of health institutions on protection of the personnel from the possibility of infection.
Mr Anderson also appreciated work on Academy's preparations for the new accreditation processes, expressing the OSCE readiness to support KAPS on achieving these objectives. Re-accreditation of the Academy, respectfully interest of the Academy management staff on keeping high standards that the Academy posseses today and, at the same time, raising the level of these standards, is also a success of the OSCE, that, together with the CITAP, are permanent partners of the Academy.
At the end, Mr. Anderson concluded that he will brief Ambassador Braathu on the meeting and told to the hosts from KAPS to continue counting on OSCE support.