A doctoral degree program on agriculture, environment, biotechnology, agribusiness and veterinary medicine has been launched in collaboration with the German government, as part of a project aimed at further qualifying best performing students and young professionals by making use of the expertise from the European Union.
Prime Minister Edi Rama today attended the ceremony marking the launch of the call for applications for an academic degree due to be awarded by the Agricultural University in the abovementioned fields.
The ambition of the Agricultural University is to provide the opportunity to all assistant lecturers at this University, distinguished individuals in their areas of expertise, to attend a doctoral degree program that will be awarded by a leading German university, one of the EU’s top universities.
In his remark at the event, Prime Minister Edi Rama noted that the government will keep investing specifically in enhancing academic capacities of the Tirana Agricultural University capitalizing on such models of cooperation.
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It is true I don’t actually like compliments, but I would accept them when made by someone who hasn’t voted for me.
I am very pleased that a very close and intense cooperation is already in place with this University management staff and I think such a cooperation drive between us has turned out to be very useful, already visible and tangible step by step, of course in the University’s best interest and favour, but definitely also in terms of the support for a vital sector, already in a fragile phase of its life due to the indispensability for more knowledge and more innovation on the ever collision course with the mentality of the past, as well as the innate inertia still running in the opposite with the natural course of unification and cooperation to make the best of land and the path towards rural development.
Today is a special day for me with regards to my relationship with the University Rector, who not long ago had all the legitimate reasons to be concerned over the fact that the admission and enrolment rate at the Agricultural University was declining, both because a lower number of high school graduates were interested in attending this university in recent years, and for the fact that no doctoral degrees were being launched.
We been talking about the two in a bid to find the best solution and do the right thing, because, in my view, relaxing the university admission criteria or launching the academic degrees is not the right solution, because we would merely go on with the same old story of the higher education system over the years, a mediocre and story of banality, which has already turned the doctors and non-doctor degree holders ratio in this country.
I think I am the only non-academic degree holder in this very hall and a person with no academic status whatsoever. I am a bachelor degree holder only, although Evis (the Education Minister) insists it is a master degree if converted to today’s system. However, the word master sounds terrible when considering the fact that all Albanians are now master degree holders.
Today is a very beautiful day for the University also thanks to the collaboration with the German government and thanks to the contribution provided by the German Assistance Agency as a process of doctoral degrees program is being launched today, allowing 30 distinguished individuals in their areas of expertise to attend a doctoral degree program that will be awarded by a leading German university, one of the European Union’s top universities.
This is our path!
This is the pathway we should embark and firmly move forward and this is the model we need to extend throughout the entire system of doctoral degree programs. In my view, we shouldn’t award local doctoral degrees and, in a not so distant future, we should no longer have local universities.
We should have and build an internationalized higher education system and we need a university domain totally integrated with the European university system and completely integrated through its academic programs with the European Universities.
I am very happy to see precisely it happening in this university and I am also happy for the fact that this university is somehow setting an example that we will do our best to make it radiate throughout our university system, because this University is extremely important for this country and is extremely important for the country’s future.
A significant change has definitely taken place in this University if compared to the first visit I paid here, where one struggled and could barely find the door of the university, because of the unprecedented chaos and mess that prevailed. But what has changed in the physical aspect is actually the easiest part of it all. In the meantime, what still needs to change in terms of thinking, mentality and the development of thought within this space constantly being transformed – I saw the new building that is now taking shape along with other new facilities, which are designed to turn it into one the most beautiful university campuses in the region, and where other activities will be combined. However, I already said, this is just part of the physical change. The most important part that took most of the time, effort and patience was the one concerning development of academic thinking and enhancing teaching quality in this university.
I am very glad that we have already ushered in an advanced stage of a relation that is being structured with one of the world’s oldest and top universities in the area of rural development, namely the Vienna’s University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, or BOKU, with our shared goal being to build a relation that gradually and steadily turns into a full synergy. Our common goal is to make Tirana Agricultural University just another door of the Vienna BOKU University, awarding this university students a Vienna University diploma, make sure that this university becomes an international space in terms of the nationality of its students, specifically not only Albanian students, but also international students from the region and Europe. It is absolutely not impossible and it is not actually a plan due to be launched tomorrow. It is indeed a plan already underway and which will progress step by step according to its dynamic.
This is also the path towards increasing interest of students to enroll at this university. Agriculture and rural development are the sectors of the future. Technology can deliver on everything, but technology cannot produce food! Computers cannot produce bread! Computers cannot grow vegetables, fruits, meat and so on and so forth! Food will increasingly become the challenge facing nations across the globe, because it is the same in terms of its size, while the need for food grows, the need for goods grows along with the world’s population.
Of course, in this small dimension of ours, we are not separated from rest of the world and in the tiny Albania too, the need for agriculture and rural development experts, the need for experts of natural resources protection will be an ever growing need and whoever will learn and develop know-how more, they will deliver more and succeed in doing more, as it has always been the case, because, after all, it is knowhow what differs the countries in terms of what they grow on land and what they possess up here [in the head]. I often come across the question: “Albania has everything. Why is it not one of the most advanced countries?” This is because the progress and wealth of a country depend on the l knowhow level, and not what grows under and on the land. Albania is the richest country in water resources in the region and second in Europe. Israel lacks water still it is the world’s champion and superpower for its water supply and irrigation systems. Albania is rich in water resources, yet we still face problems in terms of water supply. How come? This is because Israel has invested in knowhow over the years. While it is precisely the investment in knowhow that our country has always lacked, we are now gradually making attempts to make it available for development.
Concluding, I would like to say that I am absolutely confident that if future of our education system as a whole would still take considerable time to become a reality of the good international standards, the future of this university won’t take that considerable time to be a completely different reality and become a meaningful example of transformation in view of efforts to boost knowhow capacities in the area of expertise of this university.
We are building the required synergies, we will exclusively invest in Tirana Agricultural University, we will specifically invest in enhancing this university’s academic capacities. This is a German government-funded program, but in addition to its financial value, this is a model and based on this model we will also commit state budget funds to support such programs.
Prior to the visit to your University, we were discussing with the Minister of Education and her team and we are actually preparing to shift a considerable part of the excellence fund for the best performing Albanian students attending international universities and who do now return back home, even though they sign a contract with the Albanian state and although they owe tens of thousands of Euros to the Albanian taxpayers, who pay for them to attend university studies. We are mobilizing internal sources and structuring a new policy to support the best performing students and young university lecturers throughout their entire master and doctoral degree programs, on the condition that they stay in Albania at least for a certain period of time and pay back what they owe to the Albanian taxpayers, because the excellence fund, which has provided the opportunity to around 300 Albanian students to attend some of the world’s best universities and a considerable funding was made available by the government, hoping that these young people would return home and would contribute to the country. These young people who have been graduated from some of the most famous universities of the world should be ashamed for the fact that they have made a commitment for their homeland, they have received money from their country, they have pledged to come back for a certain period of time, if not for their entire lifetime, and import here a part of the knowhow they have accumulated and make it available to this society. But this hasn’t actually happened.
Therefore, we will no longer go on funding those who leave to never return back home, although they sign a contract with the Albanian state, and instead we will shift the direction of this fund and the model we need to build and fund with our state budget money is actually right in front of our eyes here. This means that in a few years the number of doctoral degree holders will increase from 30 degree holders in the Agricultural University currently. Just like many boys and girls who leave to attend academic degree programs and later return to contribute to this university, best performing students will also decide to stay here and work as lecturers at this university in the very near future.
This University in particular, and other Albanian universities include senior lecturers and high-level university professors, but since everything is a mess with anyone levelling allegations against everyone, shadows of suspicion are cast on these individuals too, who are really precious for the country, and therefore their authority is refused. This is the process we are building step by step and you should all be convinced that we will stand by the universities in this process.
The rector said he doesn’t know who the university depends on, in the good sense of the word, that it is not only the Ministry of Education, but also the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. Yes. This is because we have made a Pact for the University and, today, many parts of our university system directly related to the country’s strategic interests, like the agriculture and rural development sector, are the domain of not only the Ministry of Education, but also the relevant Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. So, the Ministry of Agriculture will invest in this university. The Albanian Development Fund will invest in this University under a project designed to transform these spaces into a campus that meets highest contemporary and European standards, to make sure that Vienna University is provided and made available a modern infrastructure it lacks in Vienna. What do I mean by this? I mean that Vienna University lacks 100 hectares of land area that is actually available to Tirana Agricultural University to deliver on an important project on which we are working together to identify ways and build the next generation model farms or to create the seeds quality control system that used to previously exist at this University.
Once upon a time, this University was the point of reference, the brain of the development of the country’s agriculture during the previous system. But this university is no longer living up to its name after so many years of neglect and abandonment to the mercy of barbaric attacks from all sides to grab endless territories and set up kiosks serving kebabs in front of the university classrooms and in the eyes of the university professors.
However, we can’t now afford to stay idly and complain about the past and it is time to look forward to the future. This is also the latest slogan of the political party this university rector supports, although I don’t know for sure which party fraction he now supports, but instead together with the rector we will focus here and this is the model of what I am talking about. It doesn’t matter where we come from, since what matters most is that we really arrive right where we are seeking to go. We are all Albanians, we are all citizens of this country and each and every one of us should do their part and that’s why we have chosen the future.
Thank you very much!
