Speech of Prime Minister Edi Rama at the opening of the first National Fair of Vocational Schools:
Hello to everyone!
Some time ago, when we took office, we conducted a survey targeted to understand what investors saw in Albania as their main obstacles. And to the surprise of many, the first obstacle that entrepreneurs would see to further develop work and expand their investments was the lack of skilled workers. Then, it was courts and bureaucracy, the property titles, and a very small group marked the tax burden. It was the moment when we started with greater conviction what we defined in our program for an Albanian revival, a comprehensive reform in our education system.
The legacy remains still too heavy, because vocational education was abandoned for many years and was transformed into a lane off the path of development and motivation of young people. It became a dead-end with a very low attendance and without any regard to the labour market. Degraded vocational schools that in most occasions had no material basis.
The education reform began exactly with the distinction between general education, which continues to be under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, and vocational education that passed under the auspices of the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth. Of course, the two are not separated from each other in terms of a common challenge to increase employment opportunities, because education is the best policy and the only long-term policy to boost employment.
On the one hand, as far as the system of general education is concerned, we have radically changed the situation of textbooks. We decided to focus on the need to have consistency in the teaching staff and to provide ongoing training for teachers, by freeing from the clutches of corruption the most delicate aspect, the recruitment of teachers.
In addition, we have based the entire process on the need to promote competition and to determine merit as the main criteria, so that the boys and girls of this country are not told any more that the only way for them is to go to college, but they have now this parallel lane on the same path to youth development and motivation for vocational education.
Actually, had we embarked on this path many years ago, the problem of youth unemployment would have been much more moderate today. Currently, according to official statistics, 55% more than half of the unemployed have no profession or have attended only the 9-year (primary) education. What are the employment perspectives for these people? What are the companies that can hire all this mass of people who have no profession, and often have attended only 9 years of education? It’s impossible! In return, we have everywhere throughout the road segment from Tirana to Durres, just as across territory of Albania, businesses that need to hire more people, from 1 up to 50-100, and even more than 100 people, and they can’t. Because they look for skilled workers, which are lacking. Because for more than 20 years nobody was concerned in Albania about skilled workers and about building a whole layer of professionals who do not come from the university, but from the path of vocational education.
We adopted the German model for a very simple reason. Not because we are second after Germany, and we only need to beat Germany as the former prime minister and government used to tell us until a few years ago out and loud, but because the German model is the model successfully adopted by many other countries both in the EU and outside Europe, to promote employment through the promotion of vocational education, where 60% of the time is spent in classrooms and 40% of the time is spent in the enterprise.
If we look at the figures in the European Union, as we can also observe at a global level, unemployment in the EU countries is in proportion to the development of vocational education. Countries that have a more developed vocational education system have lower unemployment. Countries that have a less developed education system have higher unemployment, especially in terms of youth unemployment. This is why youth unemployment in Germany is one of the lowest, if not the lowest in Europe; and this is why in countries where vocational education is developed, youth unemployment is less of a problem than in other countries.
The only solution to match demand and offer in the labour market is a healthy and functional system of vocational education. Just imagine that a student who has completed vocational education has statistically double the chances to be hired immediately, rather than a student who has completed university studies.
For we will not get tired of repeating, despite the cynics or those who make fun of the progress, that Albania does not lack demand for skilled labour. The big problem is that the market has not qualified employees. We are proud of what we have done, but we are aware that what we have built in two years is not enough to fill a gap open throughout more than 20 years.
This an essential reform that is producing results every year, and there is clearly a potential for these results to be increased year after year in the right direction, but it is a reform for next generation Albania.
Those who are now 35-40 years old did not have the opportunity that is given today to the generation of the 15-year-olds who can choose vocational education and find an employment in a shorter time through vocational education. But as Germany and also other countries clearly show, I repeat Germany to understand why the German ambassador does not miss any public meeting on vocational education – vocational education is another more option to promote self-employment. It is not just an instrument to find a job to someone, but the potential for self-employment.
We just saw a genius from a vocational school who is today 18 years old, but he can be considered without the slightest doubt an entrepreneur. He is an entrepreneur at just 18 years old, because having developed his skill in the vocational school “Petro Sota” in Fier, he was able to start his own business. And if he was able to take this step at 18, all his life is defined as the life of an innovator who has not only provided work for himself, but will hire more people.
A very interesting recent statistics on the introduction of a new technology and the availability of computer systems that actually kill jobs because the workforce is replaced by technology, has revealed something very interesting. A closed position due to technological development is translated through technological development into three new job opportunities for the society.
What is worth emphasizing today at this first Olympiad of skills is the clear message that those attending vocational education are not intended necessarily to be skilled workers in the enterprise of someone else, but have the ability to be themselves entrepreneurs.
Small business in Germany is developed by people coming from vocational education, except for those who have inherited a family business, or those who come from other paths of life. Because a plumber, a talented tailor, an electrician and so on, if they have the spirit of entrepreneurship, in addition to having the capacity to make their skills available for an enterprise, they are willing to be themselves the initiators of a new enterprise.
In this Olympiad of ideas where actually, if we believe the figures and we have no reason to not believe them, 440 boys and girls will be selected based on their ideas and will be trained, while 200 of them will be trained on how to develop a business plan, how to turn their idea into a business plan. Any good idea is a potential to make a business plan. This is why we must and will continue to insist. It is not the state and employment in a state agency the solution to fight unemployment, but it is increasing the capacity of the individual to understand in the first place, since a very young age, at school, that people have within himself the potential to become rich. They have within himself the opportunity to build the path of life, by making their choices and leading their own venture.
The idea that the only decent employment is the employment in a state agency is a dominant idea in Albania, and unfortunately in our entire region. It is the most meaningful image of the backwardness of a mentality, which instead of being destroyed has been fed throughout all these years.
Employment in a state agency, which you have looked for while waiting in a coffee shop, is but an early retirement, so that you can do actually nothing. This harms the state and destroys society.
Those who intend to work in the administration must pass now an extremely tough test, as provided for by the new law on public administration that we have built based on the best European standards. On the other hand, those who choose the path of entrepreneurship are apparently choosing a more difficult road, and definitely a more difficult one if they enter the great battle of free competition, but in return their opportunities to improve their financial situation and the possibilities to contribute towards society are endless.
We have never said that Albanians are lazy. This is what is said on our behalf by those who hold us accountable for the fact that unemployment in Albania is still a very big problem. What we have said and continue saying is that laziness was promoted in Albania for over 20 years, because the easy paths of imaginary success were promoted, the easy university paths that issued diplomas to students who did not even attend classes; the easy paths of undeserved grades; the easy paths of employment that was guaranteed in the most diverse paths, but not by merit. And on the other hand, enterprises were left without any support from the state to which they have the right to ask for skilled workers, and with which they should cooperate to qualify employees.
This is the new path that we have chosen. It is not a walk. It is walking uphill. This is not a path that will take us in a heartbeat across the heavy seas of unemployment and difficulties, but it is the only sure way to build Albania’s next generation.
And ultimately, what this government is doing is lay the firm foundations of a system that ensures that the next generation will not be burned like a whole generation of those who are today unemployed and often hopeless because they do not have professional skills, due to the lack of a sustainable system. And on the other hand, since the system still does not guarantee anything, we are trying to begin creating the possibility of training people even beyond school age.
Today, in Germany and in other EU countries, someone who has retired can be trained to do a job. Options are for everyone. While here, such a thing has never been taken into consideration. We have taken it into consideration, but many other elements are required to develop this. Will is not enough. It is of course a matter of knowledge, it is a matter of budget and a matter of partnerships.
In conclusion, I want to thank the German ambassador. I am sure that the Italian ambassador will not be jealous of this, even though along with the German ambassador I thank the Italian ambassador and all the other attendees, because thanks to the courage and the determination of the minister to bring forward the process we started, we could build a very important alliance to create the network of vocational schools of excellence that, thanks to the twinning with similar schools of European standards, in Germany or in Italy, Finland or elsewhere, we will enable our people to get the most in terms of quality of knowledge acquired in a vocational school.
Certainly on our part, we must do more in terms of additional financial support to the system, and to stimulate even more businesses that take part in the process of duality education, where students spend 40% of the time in the enterprise.
Thank you very much for your attention! Thank you very much for your support!
We hope that the EU will support us and give us as soon as possible the budget support promised in this regard, as a support that guarantees increase of our capacity to fight youth unemployment, and simultaneously guarantees a quick strengthening of the fundamentals of this system that we have just started to build.
For those waiting for work to go and knock to their doors, wake them up and tell them “let’s go to the coffee shop downstairs and talk about how the two of us will become one”, I am telling them that it will never occur that job comes to your place and wakes you up. You need to look for it with determination, and above all you need to have some professional skills. Those who have these skills and look for a job with determination, as thousands of concrete cases have shown in these two and a half years, will be able to find it.
Just as those who have the courage to face the challenge of living by honest work and do also create work through self-employment. We have zeroed taxes for those who want to start a small business. Which means that everyone can, and this is absolutely sure, create for themselves the opportunity to live by honest work.
Government cannot do this for people individually. Everyone must look for a job with determination and be assured that if you are determined, you will find it just like thousands and thousands of people have, and just like thousands and thousands of others will do, who do not wait for the government to bring work to their beds when they wake up at 11 o’clock in the morning, having stayed up until 5 am in pubs.
Many thanks!
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The “Olympiad of Skills” is the First National Fair of Vocational Education organized by the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth, to promote the importance and role of education and vocational training for young people.
Conceived as a competition of skills and ideas, the fair aims to demonstrate the knowledge acquired by students who have chosen vocational education in various schools of the country, and to guide students and parents to better opportunities that this education offers in addition to guaranteeing employment also in the international market.
The fair is attended by 42 vocational schools in the country, 10 vocational training centres and dozens of private companies interested in the employment of qualified people. Parents and students of the 9-year education will be able to familiarize themselves with branches of study offered by vocational schools, and courses provided by vocational training centres. Students will create in the premises of the fair various works according to their backgrounds. The winning schools will be announced at the end of this event.
