Remarks by Prime Minister Edi Rama at meeting with teachers on several aspects of the next year’s state budget on education:

 

Hello everyone!

Thank you very much for your presence at this meeting, where we would wish to share some aspects of the new 2022 state budget on education, as well as a series of figures and financial projections to take advantage of this moment and share also with all of those who are not attending this event today, but who are part of your community, the challenges we face during our third term in office and in our efforts to deliver on the targets for 2022.

I don’t want to go over details in terms of the figures, although it is worth mentioning some of them, but I would like to primarily underline that the pay rise for all teachers will continue under the 2022 state budget and we project to increase the teachers’ salary by at least 32% and possibly by 40% until end of the current term in office. By the word “possibly” I mean that it will all depend not only on what we actually know now and on what we can plan now, but it also depends on what we don’t know and can’t predict what we can possibly face again, as we are all aware how much unpredictable events can impact our plans, actually also forcing us to radically review and change to our plans consequently.

We experienced an extremely powerful earthquake in terms of the impact on the affected families, but also on the country’s budget. We are still coping with the pandemic, which had and continues to have its negative impact, but we will keep delivering on the government’s commitments despite the post-earthquake and the post-pandemic situation in the country and, as I said, if end of this year will see a new pay hike for teachers  and if the average gross salary of teachers is much higher than it was when we embarked on this common journey, the same will happen next year and every coming year in terms of continued rise in your wages.

On the other hand, the same is worth highlighting about the state budget increase to support education systems and the education infrastructure, and it is designed to also address some elements of the process, including transport, which is a matter of concern for teachers and pupils in their everyday lives, as they need to travel a certain distance from their place of residence and this certainly requires transport to be made available to them and this is why the state budget will also support their transport.

Having said all this and taking into account that nobody questions now the fact that solid foundations have been laid for the education system to defend teachers from political influence thanks to a merit-based, transparent recruitment system that has been steadily consolidated and teachers are no longer removed from their job unexpectedly. On the other hand, the system provides full guarantees for teachers as their job position is based on their merit and not on the political affiliations or kinship ties.

On the other hand, with a good basis for the textbooks also laid, despite the fact that more efforts should be made in terms of some minor verifications and corrections in order to deliver on complete and quality improvement of the textbooks, we need to look critically at ourselves and identify the gap in the student’s life between the routine learning process and after classes. It is a gap that, as the positive experience in certain schools shows, can be significantly filled if the school finds ways to give students the opportunity to develop their talents in that space of time. We need to provide them the opportunity to specifically develop certain know-how and the feeling of coexistence in a community, which extends beyond the community that is created by the class time. By this I bear in mind the fact that although we have launched the chapter of the school as a community centre and a considerable number of schools are supposedly serving as community centres too, there is indeed a huge gap in terms of the offer of schools as community centres and such a gap should be a bell tolling and echoing to the ears of the director general, to the ears of every director of the education  offices to ask themselves every day on the steps launched and progress made in this aspect, because it is impossible for the school to be self-complacent at today’s social conditions  and in the conditions of a society living through a time of stunningly rapid changes with the digital technology, smart phones and computers posing a great potential threat to the children’s education and well-being. The school must assume a new responsibility and protect these children by finding ways so that technology serves children and it doesn’t become a serious threat to their well-being and education.

Having said all this, the government has for the first time decided to plan a significant funding to support schools, teachers and pupils so that they can start tackling the gap between the class time and the after class, by providing pupils opportunities to involve in arts and crafts, with crafts specifically including the technology for good use and sports.

This would certainly take a carefully devised national program, work on which is already underway and is set to complete in spring so that it becomes a concrete plan for every school in the next school year. In the meantime, the budget earmarked for this program will be used immediately based on the schools’ internal initiatives. Really encouraging examples have been set by a number of schools that are already doing this without any government’s structured support, but they do it thanks to the passion and perseverance of the synergies created in those schools among the teachers, parents and good part of pupils through support of the schools’ directorates. This primarily needs for these examples to be promoted and be exhibited to all other schools and through the individual training program the opportunity to train others is explored based on the experience of certain schools, so that the inner initiatives launched by teachers and parents start to be promoted, because it is something completely different whether the Ministry of Education is willing to distribute funds automatically and mechanically, and it is something else that the earmarked funds are accessible and available to those who launch initiatives to ask for funding by presenting concrete projects.

I am very confident that we have the opportunity to transform this gap between the class and the after class time into a space of culture, a space of knowhow, a space of entertainment through student learning and a space that would attract many students, who may not perform excellently at all school subjects, but who may be talented and gifted in certain parts of which instead of leaving the gap to offer them embark on wrong paths in their lives, provide them the opportunity to engage in sports, technology, arts, crafts, and so on.

Me poshte vijon pjesa e dyte e fjales se KM Rama ne prezantimin e buxhetit per arsimin:

Another issue the Minister mentioned in her speech and I would like to highlight is the schools’ necessity to house attractive and functional laboratories. We still have to build them! One could say that the school labs are already there if we are to look at them on papers and if we are to measure each square meter of the reconstructed school buildings and the educational facilities recently built from scratch. But if we are to visit these labs, I would say there are just a few really attractive school labs that would also stimulate teachers themselves and the example provided is definitely a testimony provided by many teachers, who teach various subjects in labs, but who lack the necessary equipment. To this end, a specific budget fund has been earmarked that we will provide each year to make sure that the school labs are not only equipped with all the elements required by the curriculum, but also attractive to entice pupils and students to attend lab classes, not only formally, because it is beyond belief to enter a laboratory and keep teaching theoretically or be provided a range of opportunities to conduct experiments that complete within two or three classes at most.

The other side of the coin is yet more challenging, it is the one having to do with the IT labs. It is a problem in terms of the human resources, as a considerable number of teachers today teach students at IT labs, but they are not specifically graduated or they are not information systems degree holders, but they are specialized in other subjects. They are mainly math and physics teachers, who surely have to deal with the subjects they teach, but this is not what we want when speaking about quality teaching and, on the other hand, it is again these laboratories’ logistics. They are labs equipped with computers, but which fail to meet the lab’s targets.

In this regard, too, we have earmarked a special funding to build a totally new IT teaching system, taking also advantage of the lessons we already drew during the pandemic, as it is not a must for you to be present in person in a certain space to exercise a word and mind-based activity, as it was universally demonstrated that despite its difficulties and various difficulties, learning can take place virtually too. In this concrete example, we will ensure a sort of hybrid learning between pupils and lab teachers and another teacher, who enters the classroom precisely on time to teach a number of children from various schools via the screen. This will help to improve the  learning quality. In the meantime, the learning quality will improve also as a result of unification and certification of labs in terms of logistics and tools made available to them.

We need to give a fresh and stronger impetus and again the general directorate, the regional education directorates, the school principals and the IT teachers will be tasked with this.

We should gradually begin to maximally encourage schoolchildren through arguments and facts towards the extraordinary opportunity that technology gives to everyone at their age now. Where they in the meantime learn Albanian, English, learn the computer language, which is just like the languages we communicate, but which is a tool in their hand to access another world, which is the world of a market, the bigger global market in the world today, where you can access without having to leave your home, where you can access regardless of being in Tirana or a village in Mirdita or Tepelena and you can be employed, you can create your own small enterprise, you can to grow financially, without leaving your home at all, let alone leaving Albania.

In this regard, we should all be interested and focused to convey this message continuously, not only through words, but also through the opportunities we will offer students.

Albania has all the possibilities to become a country with an increasing annual number of very young girls and boys, who access this market and who offer to investors and enterprises here a highly qualified workforce, opening up another perspective for quality employment in terms of wages. This should be part of the daily school activity from an early age.

In one of the meetings on the Youth Strategy, I met a girl from Durrës, who had been working from home for 5 years for foreign markets, and she was 16 years old only. It may sound incredible, but this is the reality of that world, the reality where children and young people are far ahead. If that girl has found her own way, as many others have also done, their number is very small in Albania compared to what it should be, and if we want and we should increase this number, the school should be the place where children are introduced to this opportunity. Guiding pupils towards digital technologies, arts, crafts and sports are important priorities to further develop the pre-university education system in Albania.

It is time to totally review the entire system.

For this reason, we have set up a fund here to initially support the schools’ initiative, so that education is taken into a whole new level, as we have introduced physical education, which was completely omitted as a subject, making Albania the only country in world without physical education classes, and which has its challenges today, and for the sake of truth we should acknowledge that it is not quality physical education in a significant number of schools, and adding the component of school sports clubs, sports classes, so a number of boys and girls, boys in particular, who may not excel in other subjects, be given an alternative to avoid wrongful paths between class and the after class period.

Last but not least, I would say that improvement of school management is crucial. We have done a lot, I believe, but we lag far behind from our targets and objectives we want to accomplish.

We have done a lot to save teachers from the that terrible vortex of insecurity due to politicization, corruption interventions, tips, tribalism that made their position insecure and to give every teacher the opportunity to achieve this through their own merit, through a scoring system and exams, and despite the cases of abuse with this system, what I can convincingly state is that they represent a very small percentage compared to all the rest, but we have not done much in relation to the past in terms of schools management.

There are a number of school principals, who do not deserve such a job.

We need to immediately act in this respect so that the valuable principals gain maximum support and reward and remove some incompetent school principals.

In terms of the schools’ management, the same thing should be guaranteed for the school principals.

It doesn’t matter what your political convictions are, it doesn’t matter where you are from, it doesn’t matter what your social or your spouse’s social status is, because what matters most is your competence and capability. But the same principle can’t be applied to the school principals and I believe 95% of participants here agree with that.

This is very important.

If we fail to promote proper school management, everything we said here will remain incomplete, because without proper management and coordination of these specific programs and curricula, which are designed to fill the gap between the class and the after class time, would be an impossible task.

I am strongly confident, and I say it with all my heart, because teachers and female teachers in particular, are the strongest point of our pre-university education system. I apologize to male teachers for discriminating against them, but I’m like you too, so do not be upset.

For us to take the education system further forward, we should motivate teachers a lot more. Of course, we will increase the teacher’s salaries every year. We will certainly further consolidate the merit-based system each year, making it untouchable, but if we ask something more from you to provide your contribution to fill the gap I already mentioned earlier, then we should also provide you the healthy breath at work, which is randomly hindered by school principals, who do not serve the health of performance of a collective.

To this end, a full and objective and fair screening of all school management capacities is needed and whoever deserves that position, he or she should be congratulated and provided more support, but those who no longer deserve to lead schools they should be all replaced.

There are teachers at every school who can even head the Ministry of Education, let alone leading their schools.

One should not forget that the Ministry of Education was run by men of rank for many years, but the period of the most significant success of the Ministry of Education is when it was headed by two teachers, Lindita and Evis.

Thank you very much!