The new school year began today in all pre-university education systems across the country.

On this special day for all students, who start new challenges in the journey of knowledge, Prime Minister Edi Rama visited the Jeronim De Rada 9-year school  in Tirana, where Information Technology and Communication (ITC) is included in the school’s curriculum for first graders for the first grade.

To this end, the school was equipped with a new Smart Digital Laboratory in this school, which was inaugurated today and which will be part of the teaching cabinets in at least 100 public basic education schools across the country.

Prime Minister Rama, together with the Minister of Education and Sports Evis Kushi and the Minister of State for Youth and Children Bora Muzhaqi visited the New Smart Laboratory, which has been received with interest by pupils and teaching staff.  The Director for Innovation at the National Agency for Information Society introduced the new Information Technology and Communication curriculum, with pupils expected to be taught the coding skills through a platform named Code Monkey, an educational computer coding environment that allows beginners to learn computer programming concepts and languages.

In his remarks, the government head Edi Rama said that special attention should be attached to teaching coding programs to young people and preparing them for a new labour market.

“We plan to install an initial batch of 100 IT labs in various schools across the country in collaboration with the Albanian-American Development Fund ( AADF.) In the meantime, a programme is being developed in cooperation with the World Bank and financial assistance will be provided to make sure that the system expands to include all schools throughout the country within a reasonable time. It is essential that we provide adults with the opportunity to embark in a deep coding stage and develop skills through their know-how to adapt to a completely different labour market. We will expand all the coding programmes in collaboration with the private sector and enterprises so that we create a completely new generation that is already taking shape, but that we need to promote and make sure that a considerable number of young people develop skills and take up jobs in a completely labour market, the online labour market,” the Premier said.

The ITC curriculum for the first grade is designed to build on the basis of knowledge and digital skills development for pupils at an early age, respecting the age framework and the initial level of knowledge of these schoolchildren.

This curriculum – devised in collaboration with international British experts at the AADF, the Quality Assurance Agency of Pre-University Education (ASCAP) specialists, the National Agency of the Information Society (AKSHI) specialists, representatives from the Ministry of State for Children and Youth – helps in developing the main field and competences through 4 main themes: Computer world, Introduction to multimedia, Computational thinking and coding, and computer security.