Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at meeting with teachers contributing to the dedicated TV channel project “RTSH School” launched to run educational content due to the closure of schools in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in Albania:

 

It is really a great privilege for me to extend a big thank you to each and every one of you!

I hope a small group of men here, since 99 percent of teachers involved in this project are women, haven’t taken offense, yet it is undoubtedly true that the men and the boys are here for the very same reason, namely the incredible contribution this whole team of teachers have provided amid such an extraordinary moment. For the sake of truth, I would like to say that as soon as the challenge against the invisible enemy loomed large, it was clear that the indispensability to close down schools and facing the unimaginable risk of suspending teaching was one of the most challenging ones.

As we already showed here [via the video just screened here], the Ministry of Education somehow turned into a sort of a recording studio for the online schooling and video lessons broadcasted via the dedicated TV channel. It was really fantastic and it all became possible thanks to you and the teachers who assumed this huge challenge and helped schoolchildren not to miss out their lessons and become available to students, as well as other teachers, to deliver all the online lessons, without which we would have been facing an irredeemable gap.

As one of the teachers who took the floor said, this was a project that served not just pupils, but also teachers. You weren’t picked randomly, but based on your best performance in our pre-university education system.

Every crisis has fresh opportunities and winners are the ones who turn crisis into an opportunity and then make use of this opportunity to overcome crisis and move forward faster. And we gradually get out of the pandemic tunnel, we today have an asset we wouldn’t have had should the crisis would have forced us to work so intensely and efficiently. This is an asset valuable today, but it will be equally valuable in the future. This is an experience that has definitely taught us many things we wouldn’t have learned if it was not for the pandemic and it has made us realize how broad is the space on this path we embarked on due to the crisis to take entire pre-university education system to a whole new level.

Consider just a single fact. The agreement between the Ministry of Education and the Albanian Radio Television on the RTSH School was signed just 48 hours after the virus outbreak. The agreement was signed in record time, not only for both these institutions – I don’t think they have ever signed an accord in 48 hours’ time – but also for all institutions, showing that the opportunity to speed up implementation of a project is great when all share a common goal and when everyone does his part. Such a deal would have taken months if not years should the pandemic crisis was not to happen.

Another fact I guess it is a lesson we have drawn from this experience is that – as you all and every teacher across Albania knows quite well – the education system has inherited the worrisome problem of the pupils attending collective classes.In the meantime, we have had our plans on digitalization, but it took the crisis for us to act thunderously and qualitatively not only to create a product specifically designed to cope with the crisis, but also find out that for another reason we possess another tool to cope with the collective classes challenge by making sure that schoolchildren in the country’s most remote areas and do not miss out their lessons.

The online schooling, as your colleagues said in their remarks on the video it was screened here, can never replace in-person schooling, also for the fact that the online lesson lacks the synergy that is created between the teacher and pupils attending the lesson, yet the online schooling is definitely an added value and, if we are to talk about collective classes, we then need to provide a sort of compensation to all kids by making available best performing teachers to them. In the meantime, we should address the remainder which has to do with that part of the social education school provides.

Another very important fact we have learned from this experience is that we shouldn’t wait to connect other links of the digitalization process in our education system, be it either in terms of velocity or in terms of our interaction capacity. What I would like to tell the Education Minister here is that this group of people is not merely the team of teachers who delivered on this product. This is actually a group of people that have now acquired a completely novel know-how never encountered in Albania before. It is a know-how that we all should make best out of it, since I am convinced and this was also obviously clear in the remarks of all of those who shared their experience during this process,that the Education Minister hosts together with you a structured dialogue to figure out what can be done in a more effective way regarding this product and what else can be added in order to streamline and improve quality of teaching.

I am convinced that the Minister, leading a career as university professor and dean, has all the sensitiveness and enjoys all the respect to act in this respect, being confident that she is the first among equals, although being the highest education authority.

I avail myself of this opportunity to tell you all that I am very proud of the Albanian teachers, yet I am not that proud of the school principals due to the fact that, thanks to you, the reform and the processes that have been put in motion as part of the education reform have yielded positive results as a result of your capacity to improve teaching quality amid better programming, planning and organizing conditions.

I am also proud that we have today calmer teachers in the sense of their status, calmer in terms of their merit and calmer in terms of their right to exercise their profession untroubled from politics because of their political convictions or other reasons that have long hindered your job psychologically and morally.

If I am not mistaken, as I have good visual memory skills, one of the teachers who took the floor here was jobless for seven consecutive years. She came from another part of Tirana and she was not given the right to take up a job as a teacher. Yet she scored best in the first test as part of the Teachers for Albania portal. If the Teachers for Albania portal was not to be launched and if the teachers’ evaluation and recruiting system was not to be changed, that lady would have been still jobless. This is worth for thousands of teachers, who have joined the education system thanks to the portal, but it is also worth for everyone else, whose employment is no longer terminated because of the arbitrariness that had taken the education system through the hands of politics over the years.

This is really significant, yet insufficient, because, on the other hand, it is absolutely important that we keep strengthening the teacher’s figure in all aspects, definitely including the financial aspect.

One of the reasons I am really grateful to you all is that through your work you have actually set an incredible example of citizenship and responsibility vis-à-vis people beyond your daily work, as this has been the toughest of jobs. And it is not that you have done it in exchange of a particular reward but the moral reward and the irreplaceable pleasure a teacher always takes as a result of the fact that – Luigj Gurakuqi has once said, “a teacher is the spreader of enlightenment.”This doesn’t mean at all that we should forget our obligation to keep increasing reward for your work. I don’t want to reiterate how much we have increased the teachers’ salaries to date, but I would like to tell you now that the elections are over that the 40% salary hike is a pledge we will deliver within the new term in office, due to start in September.

It is probably not enough – it is never enough indeed – yet I think that the 40% salary hike is quite significant showing that even it may not fully meet our obligation towards you, it still demonstrates that our attention and predisposition to stand with you is really high.

Of course, a part of you, and by this I mean not only you attending this meeting, but all teachers enjoy much better working conditions today at schools that cannot be compared to the previous educational facilities. Yet, many of teachers have yet to wait for such conditions, as many school buildings need to be reconstructed and still fail to provide the conditions that would live up to your contribution. In this respect too, we will keep working so that no school remains out of the entirety of transformed education facilities across the country.

I take advantage of this opportunity to draw attention to another aspect that is our and your common challenge, which we would win if only you and all teachers throughout Albania will be equally committed to yield this product.

This challenge is part of the ongoing efforts to take schools to a whole new level as community centres, with 270 of them – if I am not mistaken – already serving as such already, and this represents an opportunity so that all schools, despite their current conditions, move to this new barricade so that the education transformation process is taken further forward. By schools as community centres I mean the need to seriously and ambitiously plan their entire activity, because even the best community centre schools of today are actually not the model we can show everyone “where we all are seeking to arrive.”

In this regard, we are seeking to further boost another school aspect, which has not to do with the computers, but the real life, it has to do largely with skills and senses and physical contact with the reality so that children, in tandem with the support we will keep providing – as many as 120 digital classrooms are operational today, but we are seeking to open a lot more – so that they further nurture their gifts in arts, crafting and sports.

Our program attaches special emphasis to innovation. We will place very special attention to this aspect in order to enhance school capacities to assist kids on their path towards exploring the world of new technology and equip them with some basic tools on how to move within that world. On the other hand, we are still fare poorly in terms of what we provide children at school when it comes to arts and crafts in addition to the routine classes. It is our ambition to usher in a new phase, with smaller communities in every school becoming part of a much larger space, where kids are granted the opportunity to showcase their skills, compete and learn about works and creation by their peers in other schools. 

These will be dedicated programs specifically designed to provide direct support to schools and the communities of teachers and students, which will be the most active communities in order for them to become eligible funding and, I believe, to be also able to attract funding other than the direct government funds. Just like it was the case with the education dedicated television project, which is not the government project only, but it is also your contribution, as well as the interaction with several friends and partners, who very generously and with a highly respectable sense of commitment helped us to deliver this product.

We will also introduce English from first grade of primary school. I believe it is really important we make all efforts together to make sure that English really becomes the second language in the country. Albanian and English should be two languages that Albanian kids should be best used for their needs at the end of a learning process after several years. It is a challenge. It is easier said than done, yet it is one of the novelties Albania needs and the today’s kids need.

No matter what we try to do, we should definitely take the school management to a whole new level. If we were to compare the average teacher competences with the school principal average competences the ratio is quite unfair. There are teachers, just like you here and many others in the education system, who have undoubtedly same level of competences and skills like their peers in the region and Europe. And whoever says no, I would tell them it would suffice to take a look at the progress and performance of the Albanian students at Pisa test ranking. If it is not enough, let them take a look at the best performing students you have taught and who attend international universities and who are equally armed with knowledge like their European peers. It is not a coincidence that Albanian high school students are usually the best performing ones in the world’s leading and most prestigious universities. They are all your students and not simply a product of their commitment and willingness to perform better than others.

If we are to compare the headmasters of our schools and their European counterparts, then we should acknowledge we have still a long way to go to reach same level compared to teachers. We have launched an important effort, namely the School-level governance system. But in addition to the headmasters’ school, in this process we need to do the same thing with the school principals.

I felt really great when I was informed about the number of teachers, who joined the election commissions as representatives of political parties other than the government. Why I felt that way?

I was really pleased because those teachers are still working and are part of the education system and nobody has told them to resign after showing what political party they support. And nobody is going to remind them that they have been the opposition’s representatives in the election commissions.

However, this is not the case with the school principals and this is the truth. If teachers are absolutely appointed through a merit-based system, this is not the case with the school principals. This is the Minister’s responsibility, it is the responsibility of the Director General of the Pre-University Education system to make sure that along with the continued education of the school principals they do their job and prevent school principals from being part of the nomenclature of the lawmakers or mayors across the country.

Aheated debate ensued when we first launched Teachers for Albania portal as the latter turned out to break a tradition that was shared by all political parties, with the wining political party determining the job positions for teachers. This was done under influence of lawmakers. And this debate actually took place with several influential lawmakers, who claimed that such a portal would strip them off their authority.

And my reply was: “Would you trust your kids’ education to the teachers you appoint?Would you ask your kids to be taught by these teachers that you appoint even though they are not qualitied and do not possess a due diploma?

Never!

This is not up for discussion then!

We have saved education system from teachers unfit for the job, but for you and other teachers be able to make your potential available to our common cause should become part of a school community that is properly managed, a school community that is managed in an inspiring way, is managed in a motivating and fair way with the school principles being true leaders and managers instead of being people who deal with the formal aspects of discipline only and are unable to engage in an open dialogue with the best performing teachers.

This is certainly a duty we should deliver on, but I just wanted to tell you we know that. Don’t think that we are unaware of what you go through because of the school principals, of course not because of everyone of them, but a small or a handful par of them, since, for the sake of truth, the majority of them are a role model and that’s why the schools they head actually excel. T

I wish you all the best!

It was the Education Minister who insisted that I attend this meeting. She told me that teachers will gather and I had to attend too. And I was really pleased to attend and I feel very privileged, because I haven’t worked as a high school or nine-year school teacher, but I have been working as a university professor and I am pretty aware of the hardship you all go through in terms of stress, workload and energies you need to spend. When I watched the initial video-lessons, the simple ones recorded in the first days of the pandemic, I can frankly say they have been really inspiring for me personally and your example is inspirational to everyone.

I wanted to tell this in person and with great respect. I would also like you to forgive us for any shortcomings and deficiencies caused because of us and be convinced that this is not because we want to do so, but we don’t know everything and sometimes we err while seeking to do things quickly. However, the more we and the Education Minister will be willing to listen to your plight, and the more you speak when you are asked to have your say, the better and faster things will be tackled and settled. There are also many other things that can be settled through dialogue and the capability of listening one another, namely our ability to listen to you in this case. If we sometimes lack such ability, it is you who should train us by insisting that we listen to you.

I would be very pleased to attend any kind of meeting the Minister of Education would host with you so that we can learn from you after this experience, what can be done in order to take the RTSH education channel to a new level.

Thank you very much!