Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with rectors and deans of public universities in the country:

Good evening everyone!

Thank you for coming although on a short notice.

I thought it is time to share with you some opinions when the university is definitely the highlight of the public opinion for nine days now. A student protest is going on together with a constant debate while you are nowhere to be found. I have seen all sort of people being involved in this debate, including students, university professors, journalists, ordinary citizens, definitely the government, but none of you has ever appeared anywhere.

Certainly, I am not stating this to demand explanations why this is happening, because each and every one of you have been elected from the university ranks and of course you do not receive orders from the government. However, to me this is very surprising and I want to express it publicly. Meanwhile, if we were to take note of the eight demands forwarded from the students, a considerable share of those demands concern the university and it is up to you to tackle them in your capacity as university representatives under the new higher education law. I am glad that a number of university senates have been set in motion over the past two days. I am sorry that have issued statements full of hypocrisy and fail to address the essence of the issue.

I am not going to comment on the protest’s other aspect, which is indeed the aspect that is also the most disturbing one and that is not included in the eight demands and has to do with the students’ terrible frustration at the university corruption.

Before moving to the current stage of the situation, the protest was triggered because of a concrete reason regarding a fee hike. Imposition of a new fee on students opting to retake a test was requested by you can’t neither deny, nor pretend as if you have forgotten this at a time when this turned out to be a problem. It is a new fee proposed by you and about which, like always, the Ministry of Education has asked for a consensus among you.

I am not part of that decision, why and how this decision was made, but what is known for sure is the fact that the decision was made by the government back in May and students have been aware of that. It is just like the Parliament passes the state budged and a fiscal package and the citizens’ fiscal obligations and none of them are made public and the government goes house to house asking for money without informing citizens and businesses in advance.

It may happen once that students are not informed about a newly imposed fee, but the fact that students stage a protest calling for the online disclosure of the university spending this means that situation is intolerable. The truth is that certain universities have published data on spending, but the fact is that students are not informed.

Having said this, you should not think I am here to blame you for the government’s responsibilities, yet I want to tell you something. It is my understanding that the student protest is a slap in the face of government, a fist against the opposition and hope for the public opinion. You should figure out what this protest means for you and it is not up to me to say it, because I respect your autonomy by law, but also your autonomy to draw conclusions about your own selves and the university. The protest is certainly means something to you and step by step you will figure out that this protest, in its essence, is primarily related to you. Saying “you” I don’t mean individuals but the universities.

Let’s dwell upon the university fees that are certainly a responsibility of the universities to propose them and a responsibility of the government to endorse them.

How comes that students have no idea what fees are and they don’t know at all the cost of each of them and the fact that 75 percent of their cost is covered by the state budget?

What does it cost to universities, what does it cost each of you for the Academic Senate to function with its full competencies granted the Higher Education Law?

The Law on Higher Education clearly stipulates that the University Senate has decision-making powers on such issues.

We are all aware – at least here present in this hall – that the new Higher Education Law has undoubtedly provided new autonomy room for the universities.

It is understandable that many students many citizens are unwilling to agree when I say that is impossible for me and the government to address a number of key issues, because of the university autonomy. But if the day has come for you to hide while you should face students regarding a number of university-related issues, if the day has come for you to blink with eyes and close the doors so that students take the streets, if the day has come for the university bodies to work on behalf of the political parties and encourage students to take the street and if the day has come for you not to take part, not in the relation between the protesters and the government, but to assume your responsibilities in a situation when the responsibility is very obvious, then, I am sorry, but we should review the university autonomy.

Perhaps it was premature to grant a university autonomy that makes the rector, the dean, and the university executives completely independent and untouchable by the government.

I have come across an argument suggesting that the government has a majority representation in the universities administrative board. This is true, because the government is the main funder of the university. Just like it is true the fact that thanks to the new higher education law, the administrative board and the universities themselves are in a much better state than they used to be and this is unquestionably true, but we are yet far from being right there where we would have wished to be today.

I have asked to be informed over a single possible case when a proposal forwarded by the university administrative board has been hampered by the government-controlled majority in these boards. In no case the majority in the administrative board has been used by the government to hinder a decision as a result of a proposal by the university senate or whoever else.

I am not saying that the administrative board has worked very good.  I am not defending such an opinion. Quite the contrary, I am defending the opinion that all government representatives in such boards should be dismissed and be replaced by public persons. I fully agree on this!

But the question is that under such conditions the university autonomy means an escape from the responsibility. This is to say, when I think that the rector of the University of Tirana is a person who has fled responsibility, he is a person still unware he has blocked several deaneries only for tenders, this fact surprises me and I wonder where do we live. I have absolutely no reasons to accuse and hold him responsible and by mentioning the tenders I am not alleging anything, but I am just regretfully drawing the conclusion that the rector of Tirana University has failed to understand the higher education law and he has failed to figure out that he is here do develop the university policies.

How comes that the Tirana University allocates six million euros in spending for security guards, whereas all other education institutions combined spend only 200 000 euros, and not a single penny is invested to support scientific research?

I have examined the university budget data and funding in cars and office furniture accounts for the largest share of expenditure. I have come across a specification stipulating that the university dean wants a car priced a whopping 76 000 euro. It is not a problem. Let him have such a car, but others should be informed about this. If the university senate gathers and says our dean deserves a private jet and votes for it and the decision is disclosed online and the students welcome such a decision, then let him buy it. I would even suggest that a protest is staged to demand that the dean is provided a private jet, but seeing the spending and this extreme misbalances, I wonder why the government is to blame?

This is not to shun responsibility, but I repeat that if I am ready to assume my responsibilities today and I am ready to accept that part of the slap in the government’s face from this protest, because I have blindly trusted in the university autonomy, I will no longer be ready to do so.

The students want to have a bigger say through their vote in university elections. Do you think this is just a debate? Because it is easy to hide, but it is just like hiding from a fire that has swept the first floor by staying in the third floor, but flames progress upward and not downward.

I am not talking about things the government is responsible for, but issues that are directly concerning the way of the functioning of the university. Could you please tell me how would you and the whole government would answer to a crowd of protesters who say: “We don’t want dialogue, but we want this thing this way.”

I am not here to ask you do my job and facilitate communication at a time an unprecedented situation is taking place. It is the very first time when a student protest is being kept alive by refusing a solution and this is no longer a mystery and it takes no science and you don’t need to be a political scientist to understand who has planted this seed. The fact that the overwhelming majority of the students, I don’t mean those standing in front of the Prime Minister’s office, but the majority of the students who took the street and expect the fairest possible solution and not only to these issues, but many other things, don’t they deserve a reflection?

The today’s meeting here includes a number of protagonists of the student movement in the’90s. I know some of them. What the student movement in ’90s sought – which started to oust a regime – was dialogue and it were the most courageous ones who appeared there. Don’t you think this deserves a reflection to assess the level of the students’ understanding of democracy and their power as individuals and not as part of a crowd, however just and respected the crowd’s cause is?

The university opinion is important, the opinion of students and the professors is crucially important too. But some of the university professors are hidden, others stand accused, some beam with satisfaction at whole this, others claim they are charged by police while the police have raised no charges at all. The State Police have raised no charges against any protester and professors and this is a fake news spread everywhere. But the State Police have the responsibility to dismiss this fake news on time.

The process can’t exclude the professorship body. How could I, how could the government respond to this ultimatum by a “yes” or “no”?

They say that the devil hides in the details and none of the demands need a flatly “yes” or a “no”, because I have endorsed each of them, but the question is “how”?

The call for the revision of the academic degrees. You enjoy the university autonomy for three years now. What have you done regarding the academic degrees? Who should have done it? I or the Ministry of Education?

Any outsider tends to say that things in the university have gone from bad to worse. No, things have gone very good. Of course things have gone better right where nothing went good previously. The university has now started to emerge from the hell it used to be years ago and has yet a long way to go and move up towards the light. However, we managed to put an end to the academic degrees that were decided by the Ministry of Education, right? The Ministry of Education used to certify the academic degrees and now it is up to the university to certify them. I don’t expect you to say that this was wrong. The massive crowd in front of the Prime Minister’s office chanted that number of doctoral degree holders and the university professors is higher that the number of protesters and this is a drama.

I am absolutely confident that this cannot be left this way. We thought that the university possesses more intellectual and integrity capacities than any bureaucrat of the Ministry of Education and any political representative who is certainly under the influence of the political agenda as part of a misery tradition where academic degrees have turned into indulgences and most of them have nothing to do with the science. We thought that the university and not the Ministry of Education should be the guardian of the quality and the procedure of awarding the academic degrees. But, here we are? Strangely enough, they demand this from us.

The students demand to be represented in the University Administrative Board. We can consider very seriously this demand, though it is not a practice, but we should first remove the current members of the Administrative Board. Because the government cannot give up its control over the Administrative Board, especially after all these things that have been verified. We cannot relax control over the finance and the members of the administrative boards deserve to be discharged, not because they have put obstacle in the way of exercising the autonomy, but because they have become part of a way of thinking that is the inertia we have sought to evade and the new law really does it.

However, this is not something that is to be done just because a protest was staged, or because progress is as such or whatever else. This is something that takes foresight. It takes a discussion and what is more is the fact that you are more interested in dialogue than I do in whole this story since it is the dialogue for the university.

It is not in your interest to host senate’s farce meetings and pretend as if you are taking their demands into consideration. The fact that you call the senate meeting, urging the senate to consider the students’ demands, which you should have had done long time, is a positive development too.

It is better late than never, but what we need is to reflect over what is going to be the next step, not regarding the protest, but the university as we can no longer afford three more years and make steps backward. Quite the contrary, we have the right answer to this, but my desire and readiness is that an answer is provided in tune with everyone.

Students call for the construction of university libraries. If we were to look at the university spending on cars and security guards – and I wonder what for the university needs such a large number of security guards, because I don’t know what closely-guarded secret and classified research papers on nuclear and chemical weapons are being preserved in the university, it seems to me that spending to employ so many guards to defend doctoral degrees entitled “Albanian folklore and Albania’s foreign policy in the region” is a waste of the university money. Should the security guards are employed to ensure that such doctoral thesis do not negatively influence the public, so that such documents never end up in the citizens’ hands, in human aspect this is acceptable as an action of consciousness and humanism, but if otherwise, what has hampered the university to do some few minor things.

There is also something else the students are asking for and, to me, this is the most spectacular thing showing how desperate students are. They ask the government to carry out the teaching performance of the university professors. It is one of the demands. Excuse me, how the government can assess performance, the textbooks and scientific research.

This is second time when I am told by others that they don’t want to listen to me over all these years. The first was when I was seeking to take over as the leader of the Socialist Party and now that I am serving as Prime Minister.

I am receiving countless messages and I am trying to understand what they are asking for. What’s the government’s fault when it comes to teaching performance and quality. On the other hand, I hear stories telling that university professors force students to buy their textbooks if they wish to pass a test and that they merely badly translated books. I am coming across really weird stories. What’s the government’s fault here?! How can the Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Education look into the quality of the textbooks etc. This means that a joint and complex approach is needed. It is not easy at all.

This means that the steps we have taken, which in a way or another we consider positive ones, yet they are not sufficient. But what to us seems quite positive is completely insufficient to those who consume the result of this positivity.

Although the government has set a limit of 33 percent of the university budget to be earmarked for a non-pedagogical and non-academic staff, more than 1000 employees are being paid by the university budget albeit they have nothing to do with teaching.

What are you? Are heads of communes?! Or the heads of provincial municipalities that use budget just to find a job to party militants. Would you say this is history of the law?! Would you say this is a history of Administrative Boards? Ok, I agree. However, there can be no one, not a single soul in this room can stand up and say that the Minister of Education, or the Prime Minister, have ever interfered either in a single occasion. The non-academic university staff includes 1000 employees. If one of you would sincerely say that the Minister of Education, or the Prime Minister have ever used influence to employ even only one of them then I will assume the whole responsibility and I will apologize to citizens.

But to use university budget to pay 1000 plus people, while blind students and students with disabilities are not provided the slightest incentive and this problem has never been raised. I was never told about this but it took this protest for me to find out that the blind students receive nothing at all.

To me, the eight demands are just the prologue of a complex and intricate book that should definitely wholly edited. There is no doubt that everyone, including the government officials involved in the higher education, are to be held accountable. This is my opinion.

I am not one to define your responsibility. It is you that should draw your responsibility.

I am no longer the one I used to be prior to this event when it comes to the relations with university.

The protest will end one day and students will return to normality, while I, as long as I will serve as Prime Minister, will protest constantly about the university issues. If the university opportunities are limited, everyone would understand this, but if you use these limited opportunities to play with others, then no one would understand you.

This is the story of the university!

It was only once I dealt with the university and it was when I met four deans who were worried and alarmed over a disagreement with the rector. I held a meeting with the rector and the deans in a bid to help in this process and it was the case when I found out a huge impasse triggered not by the law, but by the lack of desire and capacity, or both, to implement the law. I am to blame for this, because I couldn’t and I have failed to move forward with this further as long as it was an issue under the university autonomy. But we will put an end to this.

Between backtracking in front of the university’s high walls on behalf of the university autonomy and the risk of sharing the guilt about what takes place inside those walls, I will definitely choose to fight against this danger. I call upon you not to hide anymore. By saying this, I don’t mean that you should appear on TV and express support for the government. You should not do this, because you would be harming us at this stage, because, unfortunately, due to the miserable reputation of a part of the pedagogical staff, you are increasingly getting the mysterious shadow of the culprit. But by saying “don’t hide” I want to say that the future of the university is being questioned. This means that the university can no longer be as it used to be after this protest. We will do this together and you will have a main role to play.

If the students have the reason to distant themselves and fear dialogue with me, you can’t keep distance with them and you should speak with them about some truths.

I would like to appreciate and express my respect for coming to this meeting at a short notice. I hope that by being very honest and direct to you, I have also been sufficiently clear about what is actually going on in my view of the relationship between students, the government, the university and the public. It is you who should determine your position, responsibility and contribution to this configuration. You do not depend on the government and it absolutely not my duty to say who is working good and who is performing bad, but people should understand that in this history we are dealing we are dealing with an autonomous part of ​​social activity, where the government definitely has its role and responsibility, but the main burden of managing everything falls on the university.

Thank you very much and I am sure we will see each other very soon!