Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at inauguration ceremony of the specialized school for principals of the pre-university education institutions:
There is a saying that “teaching is the one profession that creates all other professions.”
The truth is that the countries after all differ from each other regarding the level of their development, not as a result of the wealth they possess, but a result of the knowledge they accumulate. One who knows more, possesses more, and one who knows less, owns less.
I often draw comparisons between Albania and Israel.
Israel is a country with scarcity of water resources. Albania is the continent’s second richest country in water resources. However, Israel has developed the most excellent water supply and irrigation systems in the world, while water was the biggest problem Albania has been facing for so many years; water supply shortages, poor irrigation and flooding.
The answer to this puzzle lies in the know-how and school is the basis for knowledge. Despite whatever could be said about what we have done about the education system over the past five years, whether they want or don’t want to see, our education system’s transformation has started from its very roots and is being extended to the whole space of this system’s functioning.
Undoubtedly, there is a lot of room for improvement in every aspect. Undoubtedly, there are still gaps, deficiencies, shortcomings and still active consequences of the past, but there is no doubt that the today’s education system cannot be compared to what it was just five years ago. Everything started from the teachers’ recruitment system, a completely corrupt system with dramatic consequences for the teaching quality, which has been already transformed into a transparent and non-corruptible as a result of the digitization of the entire testing and recruitment process, which is no longer dependent from the politics, a process that takes place no longer in interest of the political parties under the dictate of the relatives or bribery, but a knowledge and merit-based system.
A dramatic situation regarding the textbooks prevailed in our education system five years ago. The so-called alter-text had created a huge stock of textbooks serving a system of extraordinary corruption and clientelism, which began to be cleansed thanks to the Minster of Education’s strong commitment and involvement of all teachers. Some 600 textbook editions were initially removed following a vote of all teachers across the whole territory of Albania as useless and harmful to the process and by starting their replacement process with Oxford, Cambridge and Pearson textbooks, internationally affirmed for their quality level in every aspect.
Today I am very proud that the Albanian schoolchildren are no longer hostage to low quality textbooks published through a corrupt and clientelist system, but they are taught the very same textbooks that their peers are taught all over Europe.
I am also proud that starting this year, the government provided these textbooks for free for first to fourth grade schoolchildren. The textbooks will be provided for free to the fifth grade schoolchildren and the whole primary education system by the end of our term in office.
Now it is time to highlight the great importance of this moment and the precious support from the Albanian-American Development Foundation by providing funding for an added value to the country. The $6.2 million funding for the specialized School Principals’ Training Centre, the Clean score evaluation technology and Education Services Centre for the exams, is not a big amount, but the figure of knowledge and know-how the Foundation provided through this funding for these three projects is incredibly high. The funding in this case has not been used to build walls, roofs and roads, but to provide and increase knowledge.
The Principals’ Training Centre is an invaluable source of knowledge. The amount of $6.2 million for the three projects could have been provided by the Albanian government too, but it is the source of knowledge that the Foundation provides through these investments and that the Albanian government would have not been able to provide.
The Principals’ Training Centre marks the start of another important operation as part of the education system reform to divorce from politics once and for all at the level of school headmasters too. We have managed to separate school from politics in the sense that teachers are no longer under pressure to vote a certain political party in order to secure the job position or to find a job, but we have yet to separate school from the politics regarding the appointment of the school principals and assistant principals.
There are many school principals and vice principals who are not fit for the job. The Principals Training Centre won’t be merely an institution, but a centre the Albanian-American Foundation has equipped with the best international expertise, methodologies and best training practices for the school headmasters.
It is actually a coincidence that a highlighted Israel’s example, but it is precisely Israel the country we will borrow a substantial part of this knowledge, because this is a consolidated practice in that country, which has become wealthy thanks to knowledge and know-how. The country facing the most serious shortages in natural resources, not only water resources, but also minerals and oil, but which has actually found all these resources by extensively investing in knowledge.
On the other hand, the other part of the program concerning the exams is also very welcomed. The Education Services Centre has guaranteed zero corruption through application of evaluation technology. The exams were up for sale, but they never tested knowledge. However, there is still more room for improvement.
We have ensured a merit-based university enrolment system through full digitization of the entire application and recruitment system, something totally unthinkable just five years ago.
Likewise, the private higher education institutions have considerably improved quality due to this entire process and they are no longer lucrative enterprises that didn’t care at all about the quality, the ambitions and needs, but they just collected money and granted university diploma no matter whether one had or had not attended the university.
Knowledge and further development of the entire process of human resources administration in our schools – taking notice that minor efforts have been made to provide people, teachers and principals the continued education opportunity – remains a challenge.
Thank you very much Michael!
I am very pleased that the Albanian-American Foundation acted to address these needs. I remember my first conversation on this topic with the Foundation’s President, our dear friend, a true Albanian, – since he holds the Albanian and American nationality as well – he smiled and said I know some friends in Israel who can share this experience with us and then the entire project was launched. And today we are here together with the Foundation’s Board Members and I avail myself of this opportunity to thank them all. It must be a special pleasure to be part of this Foundations, because you are provided the opportunity both to work, as well as to visit a beautiful country as if being tourists, but who bring new things and reap the benefits of an extraordinary work, for which the President deserves our compliments together with his Albanian colleagues, who run everything here while you are away in the United States.
I would like to particularly appreciate Professor Ethem, who knows well and I believe understands quite well our reform concerns and efforts, because he has been serving here and has made tremendous efforts at that time. I would also like to thank all participants, rectors, deans, managers, being fully confident that with the signing of these agreements we embark on another important process, from which will benefit all participants in this today’s meeting.
Thank you very much again!
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Prime Minister Edi Rama today attended the inauguration ceremony of the Training Centre for the Principals of pre-university education institutions. The Centre aims at providing professional training to school principals and assistant principals, and individuals aspiring to take up such position through a preparatory training process and provision of the due certification to serve in such position. Two memorandums were also signed during the ceremony, namely the agreement on the Education Services Centre and the Clean score project.
