A Memorandum of Understanding between the Agricultural University of Tirana (AUT) and the Michigan State University (MSU) was signed today, marking another step towards new partnership and internationalization of the Albanian universities.
Prime Minister Edi Rama attended the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding, which lays foundations for new partnership in academic cooperation, training, scientific research, curricula improvement and quality education, turning the Agricultural University into an attractive education destination for young people on the path of reform jointly launched by the University Rectorate and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
In his remarks, the government head underlined that the Michigan State University joins Vienna’s University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences or BOKU University, as part of the strategic partnership under which the process has already been taken to a whole new level and is designed to transform the Agricultural University of Tirana into a sister school of Vienna’s University in the next ten years, with young people being provided the opportunity to enrol AUT University and with their university diploma being equal to the ones issued by the Vienna University.
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Hello everyone!
My grandmother used to say “it is more blessed to give than to receive.” And as the more years pass the deeper and more meaningful this saying becomes for me.
The event we are attending today represents a moment that best illustrates the value of this saying. We had never imagined that by opening our doors to the victims of that tragic situation in Afghanistan we would be entitled to such a great benefit like the one we are being provided today, right here at this university and for this university.
However, this is the precious great value of giving away and providing whatever you can for others, because energies are somehow exchanged in this life and you are rewarded for that in a form or another and, as the proverb has it “true friend is worth more than all the treasures of the world.” The Agricultural University of Tirana has won a friend today, a friend that is worth more than all the treasures of the world, a friend that is worth more than any amount of funding we would be ever able to provide –and funding is of course indispensable – and this is the presence and readiness of the Michigan State University to forge strategic partnership with Tirana’s Agricultural University, a partnership that was born at a very tough and tragic moment for a group of people and that presented and brought us closer one another. I have personally travelled and visited the Michigan State University together with the Minister of Education and other government officials, precisely to make sure that this relation established at a very difficult moment didn’t fizzle out, but instead it further forges and grows to become an permanent relation and with a significant impact on the life of this university.
I am not the kind of person who believe – most probably I am still part of a minority of people, but I am confident we will soon become a majority – that this higher education institution is actually one of the universities of the future, if not the university of the future, but one of them, because this is not just about what the Agricultural University was about, namely the agriculture, rural areas, the countryside and farmers. The story now is completely different and this will always be the case as agriculture, rural development will now be the focus of humanity, societies, and academic elites in every nation throughout the world. Sustainable development and capacity to tap into the natural resources and wealth that mankind creates through interaction with nature without wearing these conditions out. What is happening today actually represents a very significant moment in this respect. It is a war that, among many other things, clearly tells us how much the world will increasingly need – and not just us but the whole world – knowhow and expertise for sustainable development in order to ensure normal continuity of the population’s living.
All the natural resources nowadays are threatened by the exponential growth rate of the population in general, and by many, many other things that you all know much better than I do and it is essential that we together give this university the maximum possible support to speed up the adoption of the agricultural university with the time and to accelerate the modernization of the Agricultural University by making the best use and employing the university’s best human resources.
This University boasts admirable human resources capacity thanks also to tradition and experience, but creation of the right partnerships like this one will ensure continuation of the quality of these human resources.
The Michigan State University as a strategic partner joins Vienna’s BOKU University and this strategic partnership has taken the process to a whole new level and is designed to transform the Agricultural University of Tirana into a sister school of Vienna’s University in the next ten years, by 2030, with young people being provided the opportunity to enrol AUT University and with their university diploma being equal to the ones issued by the Vienna University, with the professors and lecturers teams in both universities interacting with one another and with students being not just Albanians, but also young people from other countries in the region and even from a wider region and this is totally possible, taking into account also the perspective as well as the initial impression from BOKU University mission here. I have been maintaining continuous contact with them and we have had meetings, attended also by the University Rector, and we have been engaged in broad discussions. This whole process has been very encouraging and their viewpoint about this university has been encouraging too. Of course, this university has its deficiencies, the university has its own needs, yet what matters most is that they were not able to find a way out and an excuse and politely say: “We would have wished to help you, but we aren’t really interested in deepening this relationship.” On the contrary, they acknowledged they were really surprised by the university’s potential, but not with their concrete situation. However, they were amazed at its potential and the pedagogical capacities, the curricula and the degree program and namely the potential of the territory. And we will go on working with the University Rector, a man with admirable energies and one can notice it when he takes the floor and delivers speeches and does whatever it takes to speak fast too use as many words as possible within a certain timeframe and frankly speaking I find this aspect very pleasing as I actually hate people who sleep and are not keen to work. So, it is a pleasure when the rector occasionally reminds me of something or teases me about something, that is, it is very important that we share a synergy and same confidence.
We need to work together now and the new partnerships will help us a lot to attract more young people to enrol this university and attends it degree programmes and I am sure they will realize this university offers them a future in terms of innovation and technology, as well as when it comes to what to do with the agricultural land, what to do with the waters and forests, what to do with all the natural resources that can’t be replaced by the technology, which is unable to produce technologically, and for which we would need to develop knowhow and clarity on how to make use of them.
I am very happy that we already did, although we didn’t do that in order to benefit this, will allow us to benefit from this partnership and in the meantime I am also very happy that Afghan students have been extended not only hospitality, but they have been also provided room for them to feel good as much as possible. They will soon will fly overseas, and I hope they won’t get upset that they will not be treated the way we treat them here, but they will also learn how not to be treated so well by others and they will be fine and meanwhile it is undoubtedly a pleasure that all the Afghan citizens who came to Albania, a few thousand of them, are now being provided what they had been expecting. A small number of them have yet to be accommodated and other Afghan nationals may arrive, but the system has now been totally normalized and Canada has accepted a large number of them. The United States of America is accepting a smaller number of Afghan evacuees and not as many as it really promised, but just a part of them, as they always do by pledging a lot and delivering less than they promise when it comes to delivering on tangible things. They provide us standards and values relentlessly and all the time as they are abundantly rich in standards and values, and we are pleased to receive them and we have abundant standards, values and predictions here, as we are generously provided with a lot of them on daily basis, but when it comes to delivering on concrete things, they provide us with them, but they do so more cautiously, as they lack things and they can’t afford providing a lot of them. Yet, it’s not a big deal.
However, we are very pleased that we have come together here, including the Ambassador. I very much liked the part when the University Rector said: “We assure you Mrs, Ambassador that…” I liked it as it reminded me of the time when the party secretary came to this university and the then Rector told him: “I assure you, the comrade party secretary that we will work so that the party and people become proud of us.” We assure you too. Thank you very much. This is all I had to say. I wish you every success and long live Albanian-Afghanistan friendship!
