Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with excellent students who have chosen a career in teaching:

Hello everyone!

First of all, I would like to say this is a very beautiful day as long have we waited for this day when excellent students and high-performing students in general now tend to lead a career in teaching, which had become a shelter for the poorly-performing students and indeed, for many years, it had turned into a kind of nursery with no quality of whatsoever that then had an exceptionally negative impact on our education system’s performance.

Few days ago, an important publisher in the country said that the findings of a recent survey show that Literature Faculty students were exactly the ones who read less books than the others. According to the survey, the findings of which were apparently surprising, was related to the fact that though the Albanian Language and Literature is an academic discipline specifically related to the gift, talent and passion, yet it was the faculty that attracted the poorest-performing students. This is a painful truth in the entire horizon of teaching if we are to look back many years ago. Poor-performing students with average grades 5 or 6 were the ones to enrol in the education and teaching departments after they failed to enter other academic disciplines.

Today we are at the very start of a strong turn after having decided that no student with average grade lower than seven will be allowed to attend teaching department. On the other hand, we also decided to remove the tuition fee for all high-performing students who choose to enter education department and lead a teaching career. Removal of the tuition payment is a significant decision.

Meanwhile, we have also decided to grant annual scholarships worth of $1000, due to be paid each month, for every excellent student attending the teaching department. This is a decision that will support you in meeting your needs during entire academic year given that you are students with special results and passion. At least, by doing so we help these students to meet their needs for textbooks and other didactic materials without asking for the parent’s support.

This is a true cause for optimism as a generally positive feedback has been recorded following the decision to impose the average grade criterion. And in this very positive reaction, we share a new sense of optimism for the renewal of generations in teaching, since, as one of the girls who took the floor pointed out, because of the poor performance of those who were graduated in teaching, the good high school students corrected their teachers all the time.

Now quite the opposite will take place.

– Special financial support for excellent students;

– Removal of the tuition fee for students enrolling in education faculty;

-Further consolidation of the Teachers for Albania portal that ensures competition and merit-based appointment;

– Fundamental transformation of textbooks, from a series of texts failing to meet any standards to  Oxford, Pearson, and Cambridge’s textbooks;

– Further rise in teachers’ salary;

– Further stimulation of teachers through state budget funded training programmes;

– The start of the Training Centre for the School Principals that marks an indispensable step towards creation of a new generation of school managers;

– Reforming the university teaching curricula and accreditation of some 14 higher education institutions to train teachers;

All of these are a set of basic milestones to ensure that tomorrow’s teaching is incomparably better than yesterday and a very significant step forward compared to the today’s.

I would like to express my appreciation to each and every student attending this meeting. It is just enough to take a look at this hall and figure out that it is only the girls and women the ones who can save this country and undoubtedly only girls can be a guarantee for tomorrow’s teaching. Undoubtedly, any boy or man who joins this great group of girls and women, who form the basis of the teaching, is more than welcome and respected.

I also want to express my appreciation to two teachers who conveyed important messages as teachers having a long career in teaching. I want also to thank every other teacher attending this meeting that focuses on the excellent students, who are the early swallows signing a welcome and long-awaited spring in the whole process of our education system’s emerging from a deep winter into a sunny season.

We have a lot to do yet. We are still far away, but undoubtedly we are on the right track and the evidence of the rightfulness of this path is precisely your presence here, as the first excellent students dedicated to teaching. Keep in mind that the scholarship for each of you will be provided every academic year should you continue being excellent students. In other words, it is not just a scholarship for the first academic year, but it is granted to all excellent students who remain excellent until the end.

Thank you very much!