Author: Denis Tahiri
INSTAT data show that during the 2020-2021 school year, 584,616 pupils and students were enrolled in higher education. This figure was considered one of the lowest which is considered 4,6% compared to the school year 2019-2020. The vacancy rate of universities was also seen for the academic year 2022. The University of Tirana had 5133 students. And in order to guarantee that the universities are not empty and thus continue with the graduation of teachers, translators and historians, the Ministry of Education found one of the most controversial solutions, which affects the quality of the auditors. For those who intend to teach, the average admission will continue to remain 7.5, but for others the threshold was lowered to bring the average to 6.5, for anyone who intends to follow the studies of translator, psychologist, social worker, Cicero, historian, geographer. The Minister of Education and Sports considered the government's decision as an opportunity for graduates and said that "not everyone who goes for language - literature wants to become a teacher". But the poor results of the matura 2022 exams once again reiterated the problems that cause constant changes in education, especially when they are carried out to fill universities rather than to be empty.
Ministers who live and do nothing
The Minister of Education Evis Kushi, during the government meeting, recalled the changes of the 2017 reform that brought 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 finish their studies with an average of 6.5 to enter these first cycle programs, but they will have a special code in the matriculation number that will then not continue for teachers but in programs others of the second master's cycle for other professionsKhushi added further.
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 welfare of the country has not increased. On the contrary!", she says, adding that in many branches, especially in the less preferred ones and where even students with the lowest average grade go, Bachelor study programs have the main goal of filling the gaps of pre-university education. "If it has been tolerated with scientific content in pre-university education, emphasizing more on competences and less on knowledge, the first to suffer the consequences are higher education institutions". says the Science professor.
The expert also places emphasis on the inflation of the average grade of the country's secondary schools, where, according to her, it has reached a frightening level, once again bringing to attention the need to return the competition for admission to the study branches at universities. Mrs. Nathanaili also says that universities must have the courage not to accept students who do not meet their requirements. "When I say courage, I mean that there are many universities in Albania, which have income from tuition fees as their main financial source. 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 secondary schools, the majority of young people, do not prepare for a master's degree, much less for the labor market.
"The chain is believed not to be broken", says the expert who does not forget to propose some solutions for the problems encountered in Albanian universities.
"The role of MAS 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 Mrs. Nathanaili, describing these schools as a bridge from high school to high school. It also brings to attention the establishment of quotas for certain branches by MAS which are divided between public and private universities, as a way to orient more young people to the needs of the labor market, to reduce the dependence of universities from the number of young people who enroll in them, to increase the quality of education as well as 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. Taking into account the fees we pay, nothing comes back to us, neither as 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 in these policies, as it is not that they will bring more students, but they should focus on reducing the fee until it is removed", says the third-year student, who adds that the reason why many of those who want to go to school don't is the economic conditions. "Expensive living in Tirana, housing, transport, food as well as school fees are what prevent students from attending 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, it returns 5 years later, in 2017", says Rigels Xhemollari from the Civic Center, bringing to attention the decision the ministry took in 2017 to increase the average number of bachelor's degrees that had access to teaching degrees. "And the consequences of this decision have been catastrophic in relation to the students of the branches and faculties where thousands of students have been denied the right to study in Albanian universities, where dozens of branches have been on the verge of closing 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 but in the master's, had access to teachers. "But it was not mandatory for the student to become a teacher, but to become a biologist, mathematician, physicist and so on" he adds, showing how these branches shrunk after closing the branches and shrinking them, the Ministry of Education saw that it made a mistake. " This is a mistake that has cost the actors a lot," 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, the universities and the students, invest and work for everything. A graduate as a teacher is as important as a lawyer who tomorrow becomes a prosecutor or a judge or an economist who tomorrow can be at the level of drafting economic policies". says Mrs. Nathanaili, adding that the average grade criterion does not have to be different for different branches. For this, the solution that produces the solution must be found.
"Even in medicine, the lowest admission average is 6,5, but you don't find students who earn 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 intention to go to university must be decided and built long ago by the young person and his family, that certain skills and knowledge are needed certain 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 the universities, but they are policies that are dictated by the destruction that comes from the universities and from the holes that are opened in schools and universities, so they are policies of the day and not strategic". says Rigels Xhemollari adding that only in the last year we have had a breakdown or destruction of some sectors or some elements that the government has sold as potential and the reports put us last in the region for the digitalization of universities, which the government has sold as success.
Meanwhile, Xhemollari cites 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 undertaken 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 the education expert Dr. Valbona Nathanaili, there is a discrepancy between the country's needs for specialists and the branches that continue to choose graduates. "The recent decision to financially support studies in public universities in priority branches for the country, announced by MAS, is a reason to be considered by young people who meet the conditions, but positive decision-making requires balancing other factors as well. she says, listing two more reasons: "The first, because for the talented, private universities offer scholarships even in their preferred branches, and the second because school ends very quickly and the question naturally arises: Where will I work next? What does the market offer me? How much is the reward? etc.
Dr.Valbona says that in 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 local production or with the best policies in the field of education, if we want young people to follow teaching programs", she concludes.
