Author: Dallandyshe Xhaferri
The Minister of Education, Evis Kushi, promoted the online registry in January, otherwise known as SMIP (Pre-university Information Management System). Presented as a platform that will help parents and " to be informed in real time in detail, anywhere and anytime, about the grades, absences, behavior or extracurricular activities of your children", it did not take long to understand the impasse . Based on the reactions posted on the "Sinjalizo" platform, it turns out that the problems are present not only for parents, but also for students. Even more so for teachers who were notified at the beginning of the academic year and found themselves without computers, they have been faced with tenfold work since the data was initially not processed, or not stored.
“I can't use SMIP at all because nothing appears in the system,” writes a teacher in the SMIP 'Forum' window. The complainant is followed by his colleagues who write the same concern, about a platform where not all classes are displayed. “Why don't all my classes appear in the system. Only some appear ,” they write almost unanimously.
The Ministry of Education and Sports declares to "Sinjalizo" that " SMIP is a state database registered with the National Agency for Education and Training as a state database with identification number 09-01-003, since 2015", but contrary to what is stated by teachers, according to the Ministry of Education, the entry of student data into this database began in October of the last academic year.
"In August 2021, with reference to the implementation of the system, the training of ZVAPs, school administrators and the training of vocational school administrators continued. In October 2021, school administrators began entering data," the official response states.
The truth of teachers
Migena Kapllani, a teacher at the "Konstandin Kristoforidhi" General Gymnasium in Elbasan, tells "Sinjalizo" that "the purpose of this system is for the parent to be aware of the child's continuity," but it turns out that there have been many cases where the data entered by teachers has been lost.
"At first, many teachers were disappointed when they posted the grades and couldn't find them. What does this mean? That we've been working in vain?" she says, adding, "This system has had ongoing problems and has been updated every moment after complaints and remarks made on the platform."
The problems in the online register have also been acknowledged by Merita Duka, a History-Geography teacher in a 9-year non-public school.
"Initially, the most frequent problems we encountered were the deletion of teaching topics from the system and we had to rewrite them from scratch," emphasizes Duka, adding that now the problem is in the throwing away of grades.
"Now the problem we face is the dropping of grades from the fourth grade of the primary cycle to the ninth grade of the 9-year cycle, due to the work that is still being done on the SMIP website," she says.
Online… but amortized
Migena Kapllani mentions for "Sinjalizo" that the purchase of a personal tablet to open the SMIP system was the first decision she made immediately after the online registry was implemented.
"In our country, we also have problems with technology in schools. You don't have computers for every teacher," she claims, adding, "As a system it's very good, but the first thing I did when it was installed was buy a tablet in installments."
Once contacted by 'Sinjalizo', the General Directorate for Pre-University Education admits that "Currently there are 91 schools with depreciated computer equipment, which are planned to be supplied as soon as possible with the funds made available (in the procurement process)".
Experts: Infrastructure is urgent
The education expert, Ndriçim Mehmeti, emphasizes that creating the necessary infrastructure for teachers to complete the online register inside the school building is a must.
"Changes made in the middle of the year show a lack of vision, they bring chaos, they bring uncertainty, and teachers have no training," says Mehmeti.
Meanwhile, the situation is different for teachers of non-public schools, where the infrastructure to work with the online register is enabled within the work space.
"We have started entering data since the beginning of the school year, which means that the time it takes us to enter data during the day is relatively short," says teacher Merita Duka, continuing, "We are fortunate that the school is equipped with computers and each of the teachers can use them to complete the online register, based on the relevant subjects," she concludes.
According to the response of the General Directorate for Pre-University Education to "Sinjalizo", "the number of educational institutions with functional computers is 1090 compared to 1181 public educational institutions in total ". But the response adds that "in order to assist teachers, some of the computer equipment from the offices of school principals has been placed in the teachers' lounge, where they can be accessed by the latter during break hours or free time they have inside the school."
Meanwhile, Adelina Xhaferi, a Language-Literature teacher at the 9-year-old school in Forina in North Macedonia, tells "Sinjalizo" how this issue was resolved in the neighboring country.
"All schools in our country have equipped the teacher with a small computer, which will serve him to complete the online register and at the same time will be of little help in explaining his lesson," Xhaferi concludes.
Migena remembers well the fear that accompanied her when, in the middle of the 2021-2022 school year, they announced the SMIP , the system where grades would be calculated.
"I had closed the first period, the second period was closing when we were asked to do this. According to them, I had to delete all the grades and absences from the entire register, from September ," the teacher tells "Sinjalizo", indicating that the data on the platform was deleted in this academic year, 2022-2023.
"Until yesterday, teachers had both a personal register and a class register, which is stored and filed in the directorate," says Migena Kapllani, who adds that although it has been possible to remove teachers' personal registers after their complaints, their workload still remains heavy.
Meanwhile, for education expert Ndriçim Mehmeti, teachers in Albania are underpaid and overworked. " In my opinion, three things make a teacher stronger: a good salary, good working conditions, and technology, so that teaching is not done with fingers. Tablets, projectors, pencils, teaching aids, flip-charts, to get the child to work. Also, we need environments, resource rooms, which we lack ," Mehmeti concludes for "Sinjalizo".
