Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama:
Yesterday I received a very encouraging message from a grandmother, a former teachers, who, from what I understood, is following the education progress of her granddaughter who is attending the 6th grade. She was extremely excited about the 6th grade textbooks, which she defined as “a dream she never thought could see fulfilled”. This grandmother has been a primary school teacher here in Tirana, and she was very aware of what schools in Albania need, so I feel very proud that we met this need for children across Albania attending the 1stand the 6th grade. We relieved them of the burden of the unsustainable pseudoscientific miserable situation that haven’t allowed children across Albania to breathe for all these years. They were forced by the violence of the political ignorance and short-sightedness to wander in the jungle of alter-texts. It is impossible to estimate the brain quality loss in Albania in all the years where the primary or secondary education had to deal with the incredible jungle of textbooks.
However, today marks a historic turning point for education. Part of this historical turning point is the radical transformation of the system of textbooks. Part of this historical turning point is this mountain of books, valid until yesterday, which today became definitely disqualified. Part of this historical turning point is the introduction to our system of three well-known sources of the highest quality of European knowledge for school-age children.
Actually, we thought to begin with the 1st and 6th grade children, and feed them with the cream with which children, schools, teachers and generations of countries across Europe are fed, at whom we look with such an admiration and to whom we want to resemble.
Albania would spent in 2013 3.2% of the national budged in education. However, as many studies and the World Bank have shown it clearly, only 1.9% of that budget was really spent for basic needs of the education. History has taught us that spending a lot of money in education, as everywhere, doesn’t guarantee a better quality if it is not done with a clear strategy, coming from a solid vision on the country’s future, which we cannot see but through the future of our education.
Therefore, I’m not going to tell you how much we have increased the budget for education. We have increased it, and we will continue increasing it. But this doesn’t say much. What says a lot is what we are doing in order to transform this totally destroyed system in a functional, modern and European system. From a system corrupted in every cell in a transparent system, where the quality decides on everything and for everything.
I am confident that 2014 will be marked as a turning point in time, after so many years of inertia, wasting money and energy while walking blindly in an unknown direction. The reforms undertaken in education are absolutely fundamental. Those reforms should have been undertaken long go. The Leadership of the Minister of Education is a good omen for this government at this moment, because it creates conditions to implement seriously, with dignity and a strong will what has been conceived and written on paper.
1130 textbooks, with up to 11 options, were the textbooks used by pupils in 2012. This initiative was a catastrophe causing a tremendous chaos, from which corruption and short-sighted policy benefited the most. This kind of benefits has nothing to do with the benefits that a nation, a society, a state and every community should have from the educational system.
All of you have seen how people would ridicule, being completely legitimated to do so, on social networks or in the media, the textbooks adopted back then and which, thanks to the initiative of the Minister, became the first group of banned textbooks in the education system. Our Minister of Education does never separate the need for reform from the necessity to make the people who should implement the reform, teachers or education leaders, become owners of this reform. They must feel the reform as something that belongs to them in order to take it forward, not because we have been told so, but because this is the right thing to do.
Six thousand teachers have been engaged by the Minister to report mistakes or errors in textbooks. All of them were notified to publishing houses. That process showed the first 120 books that had branded on their forehead that they were an affront to basic human intelligence, but also an insult to the parents who invest not only their savings, but also their dreams to have their children properly educated.
We have a problem in this government. We are forced to make embarrassing issues come to light. All embarrassing issues accumulated over the years. Because we have made a decision, for which we have been voted, that we will clean our house at all levels and in every aspect. Our problem has to do with oblivion, because the embarrassing issues that emerge and shock the world often become a reason to point the finger of accusation against us, as if people were not here before, as if these textbooks were not before, as if a lot of this were not here before.
But that’s ok, because it is part of the effort. I didn’t say that to complaint, but only to remind everybody that a house that has become like a motel that hasn’t been cleaned for many years, that has become a total mess, where everybody tries to grasp whatever they can, is impossible to be cleaned and become the house of everybody that we want to build in such a short time.
Anyhow, we succeeded in a very short time to make a second filtering after the first selection of 2015, and thanks to the determination of the Minister, the sense of inclusiveness and real democratization within the system has been deepened. Although she is the real leader of this reform, our Minister doesn’t look down on those who implement this reform, the teachers. We succeeded to remove another 470 textbooks, by including teachers across Albania who were asked to vote the textbooks in secret.
There are many teachers here who know very well that it was not an easy process to choose among textbooks. It was an influenced process. It was influenced by the director, influenced by the ministry who until yesterday used to give orders about which textbooks should be selected in this or that other school, and these orders were not to impose quality, but to feed the open channels of corruption. This was accompanied by another crazy situation where teachers, who were supposed to give their opinion on the textbooks, were given only 30% of the text, as if it were a bottle of wine of which you only need to taste the first sip in order to understand how good it is.
After this mountain of textbooks, now flattened, we developed the new Albanian curricular framework on the basis of the recommendations of the European Union, and with the full will to quickly follow the path towards a new curriculum of European standards, which was not required by the integration process. It is not the task of this integration process, but it is an obligation that we feel towards the next generation, because European Albania is not a project that we want to build just because we are required it by others, but it is a project that we have as an obligation to our children.
Students will not only have this school year the best textbooks available, which will continue to improve, but more importantly this year we are laying the cornerstone for a completely new education in terms of textbooks, because within five years our pre-university education system will be 100% European, and will be based 100% on Europe’s best products in terms of textbooks, texts quality, because they are not just text, but part of a completely new teaching and learning system.
So, the mish-mash of the textbooks era when we were in love with the Soviet Union, and of the chaos period when we fell in love with corruption, was replaced by a totally new era where textbooks will be thoroughly renewed for children attending this year the 1st and the 6th grade, and next year the 2nd and the 7th grade, and the following year the 3rd and the 8th year, and so on. So, within three years we will have a closed cycles in terms of scientific textbooks. In addition, we strongly believe that, not only this cycle but also teachers’ knowledge will adapt spontaneously to these textbooks within the next five years, whereas today teachers have to study these textbooks in the afternoon in order to teach them to their students the next day, because the method is completely new.
This is a revolution in the true sense of the word.
In addition, these books will be accompanied by illustrated programs and by audios and videos. So students will have available for each text the pictures and the story of what is written in books, which makes far more tangible and more accessible to everybody what the teacher is saying. These programs also are the product of these world-famous publishing houses, which we chose because others before us have been eager to adopt them.
The whole sublegal basis for the selection of textbooks by teachers, for their distribution and sale, has safeguarded the process from the conflict of interest, has safeguarded the merit of the publisher, and above all, it has ensured that the aspirations of users are met. Today, parents who buy these textbooks for their children make a 100% guaranteed investment, something unthinkable until yesterday.
On the other hand, the preparation and adoption of standards for school textbooks as a norm and a practical and binding instrument for specialists of education, for publishers of textbooks, for authors and reviewers, and for certifying commissions, is a huge step forward which separates definitively the Ministry and officials from the field where it is experts who have to decide.
It has not been a simple process, because we had to deal with a variety of interests and a whole network set up on the basis of interest that would generate madness for profit. So, the new methodology adopted for the contest, publishing, reviewing, assessment, piloting, improvement and certification of textbooks put an end not only to a rotten system, but also to any possible doubt that people can find in this system new extralegal trails, in order to find a space for making profit on the expenses of the children of this country.
Competition for new textbooks has been another success achieved after a correct implementation of the acts I mentioned earlier. There are only three alternative texts for every year, which have been announced by the Textbooks Assessment Committee. Since this committee consists of experts rather than of politicians, it could ask publishers to make the necessary corrections on each textbook, and then tell the Ministry that textbooks were for distribution in schools. This is the first time that this Commission has this kind of power, which we want to consolidate in the years to come, because this is the first time in all these years that we are making an effort as a country, a state, a society and as a government to not put politics and political thought at the basis of the system for selecting and using scientific textbooks and scientific thought.
The process is still open, which means that this school year will serve to further improve the existing textbooks. Improvement is a process that will be crowned again with the opinion of the committee of experts, although it will be monitored by the ministry, and by the departments and education authorities. We will continue on the path of consolidation of the democratization process, absolutely unknown before, in the relations within the educational system. This process was started by the Minister of Education who asked every teacher in the Republic of Albania, in every school, to assess textbooks. And textbooks will receive a final certification once they meet the best assessment standards. Not good assessment standards, but the best ones.
It is not enough for us just to change textbooks in order to improve the quality of education. Textbooks are the basis, but they aren’t enough because our children need also their teachers. It is teachers who transform the textbooks into the necessary “food” for the intellectual growth of every child. So, we need to take further the process of increasing the quality of teaching and teacher training.
The system we inherited was totally ruined in terms of infrastructure and textbooks, in addition to having totally demotivated staff, which was neither respected nor appreciated. By appreciation, I mean in the first place, not praise, but the opportunities to increase the capacity of each teacher to provide good teaching. We are very much aware that we have to face this together. This last period of the year should be very intense in relation to capacity building of teachers, training, tests, and certification of teachers.
Our goal is to provide every teacher with their own credit record, which is the license certifying the extent of their capacity. This will make a clear distinction between teachers who are fit to teach, and those who should have other occupations. This will lead to a thorough depoliticisation and to the establishment of real meritocracy in the whole system, and will definitely end corruption against which have been fighting very hard, making good progress.
The first national testing last year and the launch of the portal have opened the path to an automatic result-oriented system. Testing will be conducted at the end of each year for all those who want to have their scores reassessed, but also for all those who want to increase their reliability. But, more importantly, the measures taken and the creation of the special committee monitoring the transparency of the process, from testing to appointment, is a step that closes a historical cycle and opens a new one.
I am also very encouraged by the fact that the number of 180 schools in the country, operating now as community centers, will increase next year. In addition, 60 high schools in the country will implement digital learning within a few days, and we have ready the first 120 smart classes in Albania. It is not a big number, but it says a lot about the fact that if the process is going to function as we want to, it will be much easier to increase this number year after year. However, we must be very aware that teachers are just like students, because they are dealing with innovation moving at a fast pace, so it is hard to make up for the lost time during which teachers were not given the opportunity to prepare gradually. Therefore, they are required a greater commitment to be able not only to absorb innovation as students, but also to pass it on to students as teachers.
It is something new and very important that this year entrepreneurship will be part of the curriculum. It’s a very important thing that children of Albania will not come out of school with the idea that they must have a state job, as it has happened for over 20 years. Instead, they will be introduced since a very young age another world, the world of entrepreneurship where every dream and every idea can become reality provided that you want and know how to do it. Promoting the entrepreneurial spirit at school through the introduction of the contents of this unknown world for young people attending school today constitutes a major turning point for the Albania of tomorrow.
I often hear from my counterparts, especially from counterparts running countries where there are Albanians, that Albanians are special as far as the entrepreneurial spirit is concerned. Our problem is that the entrepreneurial spirit emerges when they are abroad, but when they are here they only thinking of being state employees. There are many reasons for this, and we will not discuss them today, but one main reason is, I believe, that the need to have a job there is more immediate, in addition to having no cousins who can fix them a state job. While here, cousins are everywhere because they also want to find a job. In addition, the need of finding a job here is nonexistent in relation to the need to go out and figure out a job, while knowledge is very scarce in this regard.
Thank you very much for everything you do, not only you, but all teachers across Albania, to making up for the lost time, and to be able to follow the pace of reforms and changes that we impose. I am convinced that after three years, when our entire system is complete with these new textbooks being adopted this year, we will feel really comfortable, although not completely relieved of the terrible debt that we have to our children. Some of us to a greater extent than others. The quantity doesn’t matter, but it is important that everyone who had an opportunity to be part of this system, whether it in politics or in education, has debts. It is up to everyone to figure out the mount of debts they have, but I hope that no one will say to him/herself that they have no debts, that they have done everything very well, and that the fault is of others.
Thank you very much!
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The Assessment Committee of Textbooks at MAS, consisting of academics and professors of different fields, selected the best alternatives to textbooks for the 1st and 6th classes where the new curricular framework is being applied. These textbooks are the product of three internationally known publishing houses; “Pearson”, “Oxford” and “Cambridge”.
