Speech of Prime Minister Rama at the inauguration of the vocational high school “Hermann Gmeiner”:
To be honest, we don’t need a special vision to understand the importance of vocational education and the role it will play in our country’s life; we just need to not be “blind”.
What has happened for many years in Albania where the field of education has been completely abandoned and instead of it a highway without lanes, signage and with no sense of order, competition and merit has been built, to make everybody have access in a gigantic carom to universities, has brought consequences we strongly feel today and which will continue to be felt for many years, as chronic unemployment for many young graduates; as a Pindaric fall of education in universities; as a total destruction of the dreams and hopes of many families who have invested their savings for their children in order to have them graduate, and as a dramatic fall of the quality of labor force in Albania.
This is a fact for which, better than us all, can give testimony business people who have experimented how hard it is and how harder it has become year after year to find in Albania a qualified labor force and build sustainable business plans when a qualified labor force is missing.
We have created a huge gap between the part of population who has graduated and the other part that has had no access to education; this gap can and must be filled only through vocational education in order to tell the youth of this country that there is not only one way, but that there are two ways. There is a way for those who want, can and have the talent and will to pursue graduate studies; and there is another way for those who have other gifts and dreams they can make them reality through vocational education.
Vocational education is often understood as the way of a secondhand profession, but in fact not only it is the way of a much safer job in the future, but also a close acquaintance with the business world and the creation of conditions to build also an enterprise thanks to vocational skills. In addition, vocational education, focused on new technology, is without the slightest doubt an area where the future can really be built with foresight: the future of a country, the future of a society, the future of anyone who enters this field to acquire the necessary skills and finally master a craft.
I told the boys and girls we met before in the classrooms that, by at the end of their studies their peers who attended general high school will be looking for jobs, while they will be chased to be employed. This is a pretty important difference.
One example of success is the school “Peter Maringer” in Shkodra, which has been providing specializations in the field of information technology since the school year 2008-2009. It is a fact that for people who have attended that school, it has been much easier for them to integrate into the labor market. In addition, the school we are inaugurating today provides a degree which is valid both in Albania and Austria. We must never forget, or those who do not know – since I learned it later – that Austria is what it is, one of the most successful countries in the European Union, though a small country, with tremendous indicator among many others, also due to the fact that it is one of the countries that has invested more than others in knowledge and vocational education. The same can be said for Germany, the same can be said for many other successful countries. If we look at today’s unemployment rates in the European Union, countries with less unemployment are countries with more vocational education. If we look, on the other hand, both to the quantity of investment and entrepreneurship and to the quantity of money received by the European Union, again, countries with more knowledge and more professional skills are countries with the highest levels for both these indicators.
Another fact that deserves attention, but that is very encouraging at the same time, is the fact that not only there is an increasing demand for vocational education, and this is due in the first place to the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth who has been very passionate about it and has found the right way to communicate the message that vocational education is a sure way to get a job tomorrow, is that there are many requirements and fewer opportunities. The principal was telling me that it is impossible to meet all the requirements to enter this school.
Meanwhile, we are witnesses that professional schools, in the few cases they have been opened during these years, have failed because they were built on a completely wrong old model. Professional school which have no relation with the market, have no connection with the business, have no connection with the entrepreneurial people and where students are taught how to become electricians only by looking at the lamp drawn on the blackboard. No lamp, no wires, nothing.
Then, eventually people leave school because they have in front of them a teacher who cannot do anything but tell them that wire is the wire that connects that thing that makes the light etc. etc., having no materials available.
The part that I believe is very important is that today vocational programs are changing substantially making it possible – as is the case in this school, for example – that 30% of the teaching be conducted outside the school, in the business place. It is not the top and as the principal underlined as well, we will have to reach 50%. We will need to have an equal split between the time that students spend in school and learn theory and the time they make practice in the business place.
But, of course, this would not be enough, had we not preliminarily guaranteed that the school place and market place be one. In addition, the place where they are taught and the place where they get experience must be one as well. School boards will now include entrepreneurs according to their profiles and according to market interests in relation to school. Involvement of entrepreneurs constitutes for both students and teachers a continuous bridge of communication between classes and entrepreneurs.
Beautiful is also the part of sport and social and cultural environments in school. I do not want to dwell here, but I want to conclude by giving you some very encouraging data and which, I believe, are related to the fact that we are making a strong turn – although we must increase the speed of taking this turn, – from the education system built only in the messy lane where everyone could have access to university, to an education system built in two lanes: one lane for higher education, and another one for vocational education.
Practically, if we look at the recent data on employment, we will see that 62.4% of those who have attended vocational education have been employed, while 44.2% of those who have attended high school have found a job. So, 20% more employment opportunities have been given to those who have attended vocational education.
On the other hand, if we look at the overall context of unemployment, only 15% of those who have a professional degree are unemployed. Only 15%!
Recovery of vocational education has begun, and it has started in a very sensitive way, since there is an increase of 40% of students enrolled in vocational education. This is an indicator that shows how right their choice is and how unfounded all objections to this choice have been. The total number of students enrolled in vocational education today is a record that has not been achieved since 1994.
It is understood that there are other records, such as swimming records which are very important, but this is a record that deserves attention because 1994 marked the last year of the fall of a system in which vocational education was much more structured than the system built later.
Our challenge is to structure the democratic system in such a way that it will be not a system of unemployment, but the system of employment through knowledge and professions.
Provided that in 2014, according to data coming not just from INSTAT, but from the tax book of the Republic of Albania – since everyone can stand up and say “INSTAT: let’s discuss details, but nobody can discuss data coming from the tax book, which means from the book of state accounts where jobs are measured not by polls or studies, but with how many people pay taxes in the Republic of Albania – we had in the private sector and employment increase by 32,096 persons in the second quarter of the year compared with the same period of a year ago. The most striking thing in this number of employees is again the fact that those who have a vocational degree, within their group, have the highest percentage of employees.
Thank you!
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A new vocational school was opened today in the capital city for the young Albanians fond of information and communicatin technology, as an additional opportunity to become skilled in this filed.
The vocational high school “Hermann Gmeiner” is a successful collaboration of the Albanian and Austrian government, through the support of “KulturKontact Austria”. The school will operate under the joint direction of the Austrian special staff, while certificates students will be given by the school “Hermann Gmeiner”, will be recognized both in Austria and in European Union countries.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by Minister of Social Welfare Erion Veliaj, attended today the inauguration of the school, visited its premises and met with students and leading staff.
The Principal said that the school “Hermann Gmeiner” is equipped with a thoroughly modern infrastructure that will ensure the best quality of teaching. “The teaching programs will be based on the Austrian model, the Austrian school. Students of this school will be professionals of higher quality who will work in all areas for the economic development of the country” – she said.
Stressing that the future moves towards vocational education, the Minister of Social Welfare and Youth Veliaj noted that the latest statistics and the labor market clearly show this. “The students we met together with Prime Minister have an average grade of over 8.5. I want to thank them for their effort, but also ask them to contribute to create a culture that, at the end of the day, the state should definitely help everyone, but definitely there must be also a sense of competition, a sense of those being first, and I am glad that this school is the epitome of this challenge” – Minister Veliaj said.
In addition Minister Veliaj said that “Today we have exceeded the quote of 10% of increase in enrollment, we have exceeded 30% and we will be close to 40%, I believe by the end of this week.”
