The newly-built Andrea Stefani School in Tirana is ready to welcome schoolchildren and teachers ahead of the new school year set to begin next Monday. The facility is one of the most important investments in the educational infrastructure for the nine-year education cycle and it will serve the local community in Tirana neighbourhoods of Astiri and Laprake.

Prime Minister Edi Rama, accompanied by the Mayor of Tirana Erion Veliaj and the Minister of Education and Sports Evis Kushi, closely inspected completion of the new educational facility.

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Prime Minister Rama’s remarks:

Hello everyone. I would like to primarily greet Andrea’s family, as well as the teachers and local officials attending this event here on this very beautiful day for this community, where another new school throw its doors open and I am very happy to state that a completely different panorama of totally transformed educational infrastructure exists today in the capital city.

What Erion actually said is not only true, but also important for everyone to bear in mind. We took over Tirana at a really dramatic moment for the pre-university education system due to a really huge imbalance between the growing number of population and the pressing demand for schools and classrooms and the absolutely inappropriate rhythm and progress in building these schools and classrooms and it would have taken 65 more years to meet the demand if we were to progress on that rhythm. Back then, it was absolutely impossible to imagine one-shift schools or classrooms with less than 30 pupils, a necessary standard to provide all the appropriate conditions for a normal class and provide pupils with the opportunity to actively engage in the learning process.

We have actually built new educational facilities, whose design, aesthetic and construction standards are definitely on a par with any other school building nowadays in any capital cities of the European Union member states.

This way we make sure that pupils and students attending these schools, teachers working in these schools, and parents interacting with these schools are all provided the opportunity to feel absolutely equal to the pupils, teachers and parents in any of the EU member states.

On the other hand, I can’t help but state today, because it is something I and we all would have to reiterate every day, that it is time for everyone to provide their contribution to overcome and successfully cope with this extremely tough moment, primarily connected with the energy and the necessity to save energy.

This school’s classrooms and other new schools actually feature a new energy efficient lighting that switches off and on automatically. Such energy efficient systems ease such a heavy burden, yet they are not enough. An awareness campaign should take place on a daily basis at every school with pupils and students then advising their parents about the indispensability to save energy.

Around 96% of the Albanian households spend up to 800kWh a month, whereas only 4% of them, owning much larger properties and homes, with water pools and other luxury facilities, consume more than 800kWh. Moreover, these 4% of the country’s wealthiest and richest people consume around 20% of the overall electricity consumption of all Albanian households. It is therefore why we have decided that these group of families will pay according to the real market price each kWh they consume over the 800 Kwh ceiling, because it is pointless that an overwhelming majority of the population pays also for the lighting of gardens, facades, the heating systems of water pools of those who can afford paying much more. This is all!

In the meantime, the electricity price for the households and small businesses will remain unchanged and such a policy will remain in place, although I don’t know for how long, as this will largely depend on how much we will be able to save and not misuse energy, which is a commodity of incredible value and an incredible cost on the state budget.

I would like to pay tribute to our late friend Andrea Stefani, after whom this school has been named and who will now be forever remembered and respected by everyone who has come to know him and has read about him. The more the freedom of the media is considered and being taken advantage of to utter, write and disseminate lies, the more Andrea will be held in high esteem for the fact that he was a man living by the truth, a man fighting for the truth, a man with his own beliefs, a man who didn’t accept any compromise when it came to his convictions. We have had good relations, moments of tense and heated debates. I am profoundly grateful to Andrea for all his contribution and I am grateful to the fact that I was lucky enough to be granted the opportunity to get to know him.

Thank you everyone!