Author: Denis Tahiri
INSTAT data shows that during the 2020-2021 school year, 584,616 students were enrolled in higher education. This figure was considered one of the lowest, which is considered 4,6% compared to the 2019-2020 school year. The emptying of universities was seen as similar for the 2022 academic year. The University of Tirana had 5133 students. And to guarantee that universities are not empty and thus continue to graduate teachers, translators and historians, the Ministry of Education found one of the most controversial solutions, which affects the quality of auditors. For those aiming for teaching, the average admission will continue to remain 7.5, but for others the threshold was lowered, bringing the average to 6.5, for anyone aiming to pursue studies as a translator, psychologist, social worker, tour guide, historian, geographer. The Minister of Education and Sports considered the government's decision as an opportunity for high school graduates and said that "not everyone who goes for language and literature wants to become a teacher." But the poor results of the 2022 high school exams reiterated the problems caused by constant changes in education, especially when they are carried out to fill universities so as not to be empty.
Ministers who live and do nothing
Minister of Education Evis Kushi, during the government meeting, recalled the changes of the 2017 reform that raised the admission threshold to a minimum average of 7.5 for teaching. " With today's decision, we also give the opportunity to high school graduates who complete their studies with an average of 6.5 to enter these first-cycle programs, but they will have a special code in their matriculation number so that they can then not continue for teaching but in other second-cycle master's programs for other professions, " Kushi added.
The State Matura portal shows the reflected quota figures for the academic year 2022-2023. It turns out that the most affected faculties are that of Foreign Languages, that of History and that of Philosophy, where there are also teaching branches. Practically, the Faculty of Foreign Languages will receive 135 fewer students next year, while the History branch will accept 70 fewer students, followed by Journalism, Archeology and Geography.
Unsolved problems of universities
For years, the Albanian Higher Education System has been at the center of criticism due to the many problems it has, starting from the fees and continuing to the infrastructure of the universities as well as the methodologies used. Education expert Dr. Valbona Nathanaili talks about "Signalizo" and makes a scan of current university problems.
" Currently in Albania, we have more graduates, but the country's well-being has not increased. On the contrary!", she says, adding that in many branches, especially in the less preferred ones and where students with the lowest average grade go, Bachelor's study programs have the main goal of filling the gaps in pre-university education. " If the scientific content in pre-university education has been tolerated, emphasizing more on competencies and less on knowledge, the first to suffer the consequences are higher education institutions," says the professor of Sciences.
The expert also emphasizes the inflation of the average grade of the country's high schools, which, according to her, has reached a frightening level, once again bringing to attention the need to restore the competition for admission to the branches of study at universities. Also, Ms. Nathanaili states that universities must have the courage not to admit students who do not meet their requirements. " When I say courage, I mean that in Albania there are many universities, whose main financial source is income from tuition fees," says the professor, adding that the three years of Bachelor's with the requirements of the study program and with the level of preparation that comes from high schools, most young people do not prepare for a master's degree, much less for the labor market.
" The chain is supposed to be unbreakable ," says the expert, who does not forget to propose some solutions to the problems encountered in Albanian universities.
" The role of the MES in Higher Education should be regulatory, based on the identification of problems, with courage and transparency. A solution could be the right of universities to offer courses or schools that prepare candidates for students in a certain branch", says Ms. Nathanaili, describing these schools as a bridge from high school to higher education. She also brings to attention the establishment of quotas for certain branches by the MES which should be divided between public and private universities, as a way to better orient young people towards the needs of the labor market, to reduce the dependence of universities on the number of young people who enroll in them, to increase the quality of education and to make universities more competitive by encouraging them to open new branches of study.
Students blame the infrastructure
Loreta Koleci, a student in the third year of Journalism and Communication Sciences and an activist in the Movement for the University, sees the problem of the Albanian university system elsewhere.
" The first are the conditions where we study, the lecture halls, the seminars, and the literature that is used. Considering the fees that we pay, we get nothing back, neither in terms of infrastructure nor anything," says the young woman, who sees the Ministry of Education's initiative to lower the average as a wrong step.
" It is not necessary to lower the average for those who want to enter universities. The ministry and the government should not play into these policies, as it is not that they will bring more students, but they should focus on reducing the fee until it is abolished ," says the third-year student, who adds that the reason why many of those who want to attend school do not attend is the economic conditions. " The expensive living in Tirana, housing, transportation, food as well as the school fee are what do not allow students to attend university and not the high average," she concludes.
Experts: frequent changes brought disaster in education
Education experts describe this step by the Ministry of Education as a step backwards.
" With this decision, we go back 5 years, to 2017 ," says Rigels Xhemollari from the Civic Center, bringing to attention the decision that the ministry took in 2017 to increase the average of bachelor's degrees that had access to teaching majors. " And the consequences of this decision have been catastrophic in relation to students of branches and faculties where thousands of students have been denied the right to study at Albanian universities, where dozens of branches have been closed and have been closed," he says, listing branches such as Biology, Mathematics, Chemistry, Physics, to which students could not go with an average below 7.5, this is because these branches, not in the bachelor's degree but in the master's degree, had access to teaching. " But it was not mandatory for the student to go to be a teacher, but to become a biologist, mathematician, physicist and so on," he adds, showing how these branches shrank and after the branches were closed and their shrinkage, the Ministry of Education saw that it had made a mistake. " This is a mistake that has cost many actors," he concludes.
Meanwhile Dr. Valbona Nathanaili, emphasizes for "Sinjalizo" that this decision-making is the result of the request of higher education institutions not to prejudice and label certain branches as more or less important for society.
" All branches are equally important. Both sides, universities and students, invest and work for all of them. A graduate as a teacher is just as important as a lawyer who tomorrow becomes a prosecutor or judge or as an economist who tomorrow can be at the level of drafting economic policies," says Ms. Nathanaili, adding that the GPA criterion does not have to be different for different branches. For this, a solution must be found that produces solutions.
" Even in medicine, the lowest admission average is 6,5, but you don't find students who gain the right to study with such an average," says Dr. Valbona Nathanaili, who adds that setting a minimum limit is a kind of agreement we have made to show that the goal of going to university must be decided and built long ago by the young person and his family, that certain skills and knowledge are needed to gain - at least - the right to apply.
But when education policies change so quickly, the question that remains is, will this policy change again?
" As far as we can see, the policies of the Ministry of Education are not dictated by the needs of universities, but are policies that are dictated by the destruction that comes from universities and from the holes that open in schools and universities, so they are policies of the day and not strategic," says Rigels Xhemollari, adding that only in the last year have we had a breakdown or destruction of some sectors or some elements that the government has sold as potential and the reports show us to be the last in the region for the digitalization of universities, which the government has sold as a success.
Meanwhile, Xhemollari brings as an example of wrong policies the termination of the contract with the Academic Platform that would carry out anti-plagiarism control. " If we have within the system, professors with undeserved titles, with plagiarism in their doctorates, then what can we expect next? So in this sense, the policies that are being taken are not well-thought-out policies, they are not strategic, but to fill the holes at the moment when the problem of universities or schools arises," he concludes.
For education expert Dr. Valbona Nathanaili, there is a discrepancy between the country's needs for specialists and the branches that continue to choose high school graduates. " The recent decision to financially support studies at public universities in priority branches for the country, announced by the Ministry of Education, is a reason to be considered by young people who meet the conditions, but positive decision-making requires other factors to be balanced," she says, listing two more reasons: " First, because for the talented, private universities offer scholarships even in preferred branches, and secondly because school ends very quickly and naturally the question arises: Where will I work next? What does the market offer me? How much is the reward? etc.
Dr. Valbona says that from another perspective , it seems that MAS in some way seeks to help public universities. “ But MAS policies must be part of more general policies, integrated with policies that promote domestic production or with the best policies in the field of education, if we want young people to follow teaching programs,” she concludes.
