A look at future of higher education in Albania during meeting with Luigj Gurakuqi University professors in Shkodra:
– You are all quite aware of the situation prevailing in the universities and of courses it took an extreme step to shut down several universities and put up some barriers to squelch all that haemorrhage few years ago. But what sounds somehow strange to me is the rectors’ direct tie with the Education Minister as a university rector is the number one person and as such he or she is also the government’s “viceroy” in terms of management and law implementation, but not in terms of dependence. There are some issues that have become essential during this phase. With the Law on the Higher Education we have pressed ahead with the universities autonomy process and the law grants a broad autonomy to the university. Of course, it is not only about writing a law, because you can write really a good piece of legislation, yet its implementation is something else. What worries me most is that the university autonomy is often perceived as freedom, but not as a responsibility. But freedom and responsibility should go hand in hand. For the university autonomy to work, freedom and responsibility should be coupled together, otherwise it would be perceived just a freedom to do whatever in my power, but as a responsibility for the state when it comes to other issues.
We should move towards establishing university autonomy with us being more creative and seek to open new pathways and adapt to new conditions later. Unfortunately, this is not the general trend, but ways are being explored to add new programs and curricula in order to hire certain university professors and keep the university alive by imposing tuition fees and tariffs. This has forced us to refuse moving forward along the very same path.
–I think there are two lanes we should move on.
First; your concerns and ideas should be translated into a university reform, which would be a product of thorough detailed discussions among you and this is where we are seeking to take the public universities within the next decade. We need to discuss, agree on that and clarify on all functioning details, because I think there is a problem when it comes to what I just listened, because the Ministry of Finance has been founded to say “no”. It has not been established to say “yes”. If you are to address to the Ministry of Finance, the answer you would receive is a definitive “no”, while securing the Ministry’s accord would take a struggle and a lot of efforts and I believe this is the case all over the world.
This is something that should not let to be spontaneous, chaotic, but instead, your ideas are translated into a platform and it should be a product of consultations and agreement with the Ministry in the sense that dialogue among partners is needed. We should render a new strength to the university autonomy and once the proposed platform is green-lighted by the Ministry of education, it won’t be hampered by debates.
–Second; we face a gap in terms of the education degree and graduation, meaning one is either a vocational education graduate or a doctor of science. In between, we need to create the whole generation of the vocational colleges. If someone is graduated in electrician degree program from the vocational education school in Shkodra and he doesn’t want to become an electrical engineer but a technician, the universities should start thinking about creating a vocational education college so that provide the opportunity for him to attend a two-year degree program so that he becomes a skilled electrician or a technician, who are the most sought in the labour market.
If we are to look at tourism, today we face a problem as this industry comprises either waiters or super managers, while we lack skilled professionals on the chain of service. We want to focus on this.
–It is more important for us to succeed in integrating our universities with the international universities. Introducing a program here and there is not bad at all, yet they quickly end just like such programs are introduced. It a university becomes a subsidiary or an affiliate of an international university, for example Shkodra University becomes a subsidiary of Siena University, and the Albanian university professors work together their Italian colleagues under a central management of Siena University, then students could be told that they will be attending Siena’s Luigj Gurakuqi university and they would be graduated in a certain number of degree programs. But the teacher education should be a specific degree program taught by Shkodra University only and not the Siena University, which would help your university to move to a whole new level. It would be really great if the diploma a student receives here is recognized in a much broader territory and the whole European Union area. Such a solution would allow for the best performing students to enrol the university here and the money that parents spend for their children’s education is spent here, and the family would spend less, because parents currently spend extraordinary amounts of money for their children’s education abroad. With such opportunities created here, a whole new level is also created in whole private sector so that these people become interested in working here, if they wish to do so, but anyhow they won’t be forced to leave the country because no chances and opportunities are provided to them and the private enterprises would no longer face the shortage of skilled and qualified workers. This would also naturally lead to the salary hikes and to a whole chain of production sector.
All these should take place in a structured way and this needs that you sit and draft a 10-year development platform for the university, so that we don’t fall prey to the inertia or the immediate needs, but instead we explore the immediate needs in view of where we would want to arrive in ten years’ time.
You certainly have ideas, yet a project would be inexistent as long as it is not drafted in a written form. As soon as a project is written down and as soon as it receives a full approval and consensus, then each signing party should work to implement it with the university doing its part and the Ministry doing its part, while fully guaranteeing both the university autonomy, but also the responsibilities. Otherwise the two sides would be locked in a cycle of strife and impasse. However, it is also normal as a major step has been already taken forward and it would just take time to yield its results.
– The individuals more inclined or apt to become teachers should enrol the teacher education faculty. Others could be more inclined to become editors, which is one of the biggest deficiencies we currently face. We still fail to produce correct documents so that the future generations won’t laugh at us whenever they open the archives preserving the documents of our institutions. For example, we have employed editors, or spell correctors at the Prime Minister’s office and I can’t sign a document that would contain misspellings in its text. The corrector should be held accountable for this, because it is scandalous that the documents of state institutions are not written correctly in the official language. However, we haven’t hired correctors in entire system and we shouldn’t employ people who write by using abbreviations, just like as if writing a whatsapp text message.
The figure of teacher has been degraded in this country and illiterate people were appointed as teachers, though they lacked proper education. The teacher is a distinguished personality and not a state worker and I believe important improvements have been made in this aspect, even though this remains a process.
–The programme on the best performing students has worked and it is underway. It concerns a certain group, yet it is not a final solution. What I would emphasize and reiterate is that this is a matter of your initiative, because the university at this stage should be proactive until it provides arguments why people should enrol in them.
Municipalities across Albania, except few of them, face problems when it comes to their human resources. They lack human capital for known reasons. Therefore, the university is the right place where one can find the needed human resources to compensate the deficiencies. You need to address to a university and ask for support, provide support an expertise on an issue. But they do not because on the other hand, even the university has not provided the evidence that it can do so. So even here you have to be a little proactive.
