Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks during inauguration of the completely renovated primary school “Servete Maçi” in Tirana on the start of the new academic year:
Hello everyone!
First of all, I would like to express a special gratitude to the parents for rejecting the mentality of a completely wrong decision-making designed to turn the school yards into the construction site for a condominium, and thanks to them, this school, as a common asset, escaped greed. And here we are today!
The school building has undergone an extraordinary transformation and I am convinced that many have never thought it would take place. Prior to arriving here, we happened to meet a group of schoolchildren, who have experienced both the previous and the newly-renovated school building and education conditions and they felt extremely happy thanks to this project designed wisely and with much love and realism, which, frankly speaking, is beyond reproach.
Of course, it is up primarily to the team of teachers, parents and students to come together in order to ensure proper building maintenance, as the new facility is a non-easy maintainable structure. At the same time, it is up to this it is up to the community to use the school venues after classes as school also contains meeting and social spaces open and available to the entire community and it features a fantastic gym, pleasant interior premises and classrooms that will be soon equipped with most advanced materials. All these elements are sufficient to create a community center available not only to students, but also to the young boys and girls and entire community. With these elements in place, the school can open up to the community too and host a series of community-based events.
Most importantly, we should highlight on this first day of the new school year the fact that in addition to the radically transforming infrastructure, nearly 200 school buildings across Albania have been rebuilt, or built from scratch up to optimal standards, while construction and reconstruction of many other schools is set to complete in a near future. I am talking about the group of new 17 schools due to be built in the Municipality of Tirana through a government-funded project and plans to move forward with a new ambition for the educational buildings to remain open around the clock to double as community hubs.
However, once the infrastructure, the educational venues and logistics are all in place, most importantly is the process content, the substance of school-student relation, which of course is provided by the teachers, parents and relevant authorities. I think it is absolutely not an exaggeration if we are to say that complementary progress has been made in terms of infrastructure. Today, more quality and efficient learning methods and friendly education system is in place in terms of the relaxed curricula, internal organization and, above all, the teaching personnel enjoys today stronger protection from the outside political assaults and free from the claws of political interests, or the previously widely prevalent corruption and bribing practices.
Of course, all this glitter is not gold. This process and the entire education system still includes elements that need to be addressed. There are also heinous cases ranging from the rules violation to actions breaching the administrative functioning framework because of illicit relations between individuals. However, we can openly state that if we were to look at the today’s functioning of the school and education system and the today’s status of teachers, no comparison of whatsoever can be drawn with the situation that was in place just few years ago. In the meantime, if we were to consider where to we are seeking to arrive in the future, then a lot remain to be done, but I am fully confident that together, also thanks to the gained experience, and thanks to the commitment of a part of the teacher’s army, and thanks to a number of school directors and principals, who have really demonstrated competence in managing all aspects of the reform we have embarked on, then we will succeed successfully.
I am very pleased that the school principal has taken care to invite teachers of a generation earlier, who are now honourable retirees, but who continue to attach special attention to this environment. It would suffice to take a look at the lady wearing a hat somewhere around here to figure out that we all need to continue learning how to cultivate the taste of our looks in a certain setting.
And, on the other hand, music classes are this school’s most important element. With these elements in place, the school can open up to the community too and host a series of community-based events.
I would like to recall the fact that as many as 455, 000 primary and secondary education students have begun the new academic year, and I am very pleased that around 225, 000 of them have received their textbooks for free. Schoolchildren from the first to the fifth grade have all received free textbooks, including all those coming from families under social welfare scheme, or special needs. Sixth and seventh grade will be included in the free textbooks scheme next year, while, as we have already promised, free textbooks will be distributed to entire primary education system from first to ninth grade by 2021.
On the other hand, I would like to state right here today, because the school principals and teachers have already learned, just like me and everyone else have heard on daily, and I am talking about the complaint from several parents and spectators of such processes about the need to look after the textbooks and handover in order to provide them to the pupils a year later. It is just a material matter, which of course is, but, above all, it’s a matter of education and cultivation love and special respect for books from a very early age. As kids we have been always that “a book is someone’s best friend” and as such it deserves to be treated with utmost care and respect. And of course, if it would have been just a material matter, more developed countries than us, from Sweden to France, Germany and Canada, not to mention each by name, should they were not to pursue such a conditioned practice that if you want to receive your textbooks for free next year, then you should hand over the books you have already used by end of academic year so that other children can use them again.
I believe, this year results were much more positive we all had anticipated. The returned textbooks are in much better condition than we initially thought and it is up to the teachers and parents to take care of this aspect too.
With greatest respect for the teachers and each and every one of you being here today, for all parents who have escorted their kids on the first day of school and for all of those who strive to provide optimum conditions for their kids, I would like to conclude these remarks by providing one example; among many other things, we pick a number of high school graduates to enrol and attend the Istanbul Technical University based on a bilateral agreement with the University covering any related costs. Each year, we pick 10 to 15 students, without having any clue about who they are and where they come from, but strictly based on their performance results. Last season, the best performing student celebrated by whole university – one of the world’s oldest and best technical universities – was an Albanian girl from this very group.
Importantly enough is to say that the majority of these students, who are selected based on their performance only, come from poor families. Some of them come from families currently under the state’s welfare scheme and this means a lot, just like the fact that in many unimaginable houses I have visited – with many of them, not metaphorically but realistically, had no roof at all and water flowed whenever raining and children did homework by holding an umbrella, yet these kids excelled in school and their grade point average was 10. Many of these kids are mostly the best performing pupils and students. This speaks volumes.
