Two School, One Roof

This week we have been going the current situation in Bosnia. What I found most intriguing about the current situation in Bosnia is something referred to as “two schools, one roof.” I do not know if many of you may have heard this term before but I had not and found it so interesting because it is such a different system that what system is here in the United States.

Now what “two schools, one roof” refers to is the policy of having literally two schools, two different styles of education, in the same school building. You may be thinking that well two different styles of education does not seem that bad, everyone has a different style of learning, right? Well this is different; these students are being segregated because of their religion because there is still a lot of tension between the two religious groups, Muslims and Christians, from the Bosnian Genocide during the 1990’s. In some of these schools students of different religions even enter through different doors so that they stay separated. These students learn different histories about Bosnian depending on their religion. Some students will learn that the Muslims should not be in Bosnia and that they need to be expelled; while the other side will learn that the Muslims were brutally murdered by the Slavs or they may not even learn about the Bosnian Genocide. Being taught these different ways I feel helps promote some of the stereotypes which allowed for violence to occur to the level which it did in the Bosnian Genocide.

It is so interesting that religion is so ingrained into education because here in the United States it is not. Yes, you are allowed to study religion in higher education but it is not something required. While in Bosnia some schools pray in school.

I would like to be clear that no all schools in Bosnia have this style of education system. The education of an area is decided by Minister of Education for each district like area (there are 10 in Bosnia). There are some schools which are fully integrated and do not have religion in school or teach different histories.