“An auspicious new year!”

This is the wish that Prime Minister Edi Rama addressed today to every child and pupil across the country, attending school for the very first time or coming back to school.

At the start of the first day of school, Prime Minister Rama and Minister of Education Lindita Nikolla joined pupils of the high school “Sami Frasheri” in Tirana. This school is ranked among the best schools across the country in terms of performance and results, and as such it is part of the vanguard for a radical transformation of our schools.

120 smart classes opened this year in high schools across the country, three of which in the high school “Sami Frasheri”. The Prime Minister stopped by the 10th grade during the math class. For the first time the entire teaching process is digital.

“It was not coincidentally that we chose the school “Sami Frasheri”, one of the schools that has been historically vanguard in Albania. It begins this year with three smart classes out of the 120 smart classes opened in the high schools across the country, and our goal is to have smart classes across Albania by the opening of the new school year 2018-2019.

I don’t think that there is a better place than the yard of this school to wish an auspicious new year to all pupils and parents, who look at their children with a lot of compassion and with many hopes and dreams”- the Prime Minister said.

During a friendly chat with pupils, the Prime Minister told them: “I hope very much that you will be an excellent example for the implementation of this new program. You are the very first to begin with smart classes. I am convinced that this experience will teach a lot not only to you, but also to your teachers.”

Among the pupils, there was a former pupil of this high school who is now attending university abroad. He said he was very thrilled for this innovation in his former school. “I am happy to have you here, and for all these opportunities you are giving to the new generations to have classes similar to those in Japan, USA and Europe”, – the young student told the Prime Minister.

Minister Nikolla explained that this school year will start with 6 digital curricula, instead of the 3 envisaged. “We promised to make available three digital curricula. We have been able to provide 6 curricula in this school year.”

Another transforming innovation of this school year are textbooks, published by three of the best institutions in Europe in terms of education quality, “Pearson”, “Cambridge” and “Oxford”. The Prime Minister defined it a revolution that will be extended to the entire school cycle in the next three years.

“In order to thoroughly transform our education system, we have started a series of reforms which are giving the first positive results for students. Let’s not forget that this school year started with the first products of a real revolution in terms of school textbooks. Children of the 1st and 6th grades will have available textbooks from three acclaimed sources in terms of quality of educational textbooks in Europe, such as “Pearson” “Cambridge” and “Oxford”. This will continue in the next three years, in order to close the cycle for everybody.”