Prime Minister Edi Rama’s remarks at launch of e-learning platform https://akademi.al:
Hello everyone!
First of all, allow me to express my pleasure for being together here in a school recently rebuilt by the Municipality of Lezha. A school that was almost degraded and reduced to ruins, just like it has been the case with many other school buildings all over Albania, but which has now been rebuilt from scratch. In the meantime, the effort to rebuild the existing schools, which still need to be renovated and to rebuild the schools that unfortunately collapsed on the tragic night of last November 26, continues every day
We are here today to press ahead with an initiative launched by our government and the Ministry of Education aimed at supporting schoolchildren still learning in collective classrooms. The collective classrooms remain a serious inherited problem that is gradually being addressed, but which is still present, denying equal treatment to schoolchildren in these classrooms in terms of learning when compared to other kids, who are provided the opportunity to sit in classrooms according to their age and close to their place of residence. On the other hand, as this initiative shows, any crisis we are forced to deal with represents also a great opportunity.
Every barrier represents also an incentive. Every wall standing on our way actually stirs our imagination and mobilizes us to make more efforts to overcome it.
The initiative to fully digitalize collective classrooms and provide schoolchildren in collective classrooms access to online learning through learning sessions taught by Albania’s best teachers is indeed an initiative that transforms a crisis into a real opportunity as we are moving to ultimately tackle it by digitizing learning throughout the network of children attending collective classes. By transforming schools, classrooms and stations where these children come together into centres where they really engage in activities they are supposed to carry out together, including activities concerning the children’s physical, artistic and social education, but not their learning and teaching activities in the same classrooms, taught by same teacher with second graders sitting in one desk and seventh graders sitting in another desk.
We are absolutely convinced that not only this is the right solution, but also the opportunity, thanks to our partners who show their best values in this difficult time than usually, to do it quickly and very well, providing ultimate and final solution to a problem, which in ordinary times, various governments have failed to solve it. We too, for the sake of truth, have simply softened it, but we have failed to completely resolve it.
Through this initiative, we solve this problem and offer all children in collective classrooms quality access to learning, even access to learning with the best teachers of the Republic of Albania. They are a team of teachers who have been selected from the best, to implement all these programs, which of course are available to everyone, not just to children in collective classrooms to face this delicate and so confusing phase of our lives, when we face an invisible enemy, a force of nature, harming and preventing us from seeing the next day with more clarity.
In this crisis, what is happening with education is extraordinary, precisely for what ensues. Not simply for what it provides us today, but also in terms of what may ensue from this crisis, because this digital teaching program is not going to seize once this battle is over or rather the war against the invisible enemy is over. Quite the contrary, it will continue to develop and become sophisticated, becoming an integral part of educational life, giving opportunities not only to students, but also to teachers to adapt their teaching methods, taking advantage of the example of the best teachers, who will work and teach these digital lessons. But providing also parents with the opportunity to update their knowledge by helping their children in this effort and benefit the teacher’s direct assistance without needing to meet the teacher in person, which they can certainly do, but yet it prevents teacher from being available to all parents, who would like to precisely know what they should do and how to react to a certain issue or another issue in the effort to help their children.
The last but not least, which happens to be the most important indeed as it actually goes beyond merely talking about the topic we have come together to discuss today and which is the digital or online learning amid the pandemic situation. It has to do with the extraordinary and daily challenge of the entire education system, from the Education Minister to the last education system employ, going through thousands of teachers who have to face the double or double burden as a result of this pandemic situation. They have simultaneously to cope with their daily teaching and education activities as well as the extraordinary task to be also like parents of children, also by being constantly more vigilant than everyone else who just like them, like citizens should comply with the face mask and social distance rule, wash hands frequently, not just because of the contact with so many children, but also, through them, with many families. On the other hand, also because they do the hardest job possible, in order to make it as easy and understandable as possible for the children, why they should not hug each other, why they should not shake hands with each other, why should they stay away from each other, while children from the first moment of birth are taught to do quite the opposite, to be as close as possible to the mother, to be as close as possible to the father, to hug grandparents, then friends and so on.
On the other hand it is an extraordinary challenge to provide amid possible and less probable conditions – thankfully, most schools, but not all have the conditions to abide by these rules without any great difficulty, most yes and thankfully, even thanks to teams of teachers and school leaders, the rules are being implemented best in schools, but this is the case also in schools where conditions are less helpful. For all these, I believe teachers, school principals, the head of education, stand today on the side of doctors on the first front.
If doctors are on the line of fire to fight the virus directly in the human bodies, teachers are on the front line to prevent the chain of infection from spreading rapidly and affecting many people.
I avail myself of this opportunity to say this is the moment for everyone to become aware of the danger we all are facing, which could force us to reintroduce a second lockdown. A second lockdown would turn out to be a lot more problematic and would cause a lot more consequences than the initial one in all aspects and a much severe impact on everyone and all categories. We can avoid such a danger by not shunning what we are all supposed to do in our daily lives, including refusal to wear a mask as soon as leave our homes and keeping the face mask everywhere outside our homes, maintain physical and social distances in any situations, avoiding going to restaurants, bars and cafes when really not necessary, avoid large gatherings and respect the others’ health by always complying with these rules. I can go on to mention many other rules which may sound a lot, yet they just three of them; keep the face mask everywhere, maintain physical distance and wash hands frequently. The three are of course three annoying things when it comes to the strength of our habits over the years, but they are so small in relation to the tremendous damage we can sustain if we reintroduce a new lockdown, that everyone really needs to understand that what they do matters it. No one should act on the idea that I am not the one who will bring about the lockdown, “who cares if I am not wearing the mask, if I do not respect distances, if I am not washing my hands.” Not to mention something else, which should be said and should not be forgotten that this is not a game, it is not a common seasonal flu and with the seasonal flu that further weakens the body and organism of everyone who contract flu. The virus can be fatal.
So let’s do this together!
I would like to thank and express deep respect to all teachers all over Albania, who today are really giving a special contribution, not just to the well-being and the future of children, but also for their health and their families.
Thank you!
