Author: Marina Zela
As another university year comes to an end, you begin to appreciate what happened 5 years ago, when students began demanding greater rights and Services over their academic lives, and what has been achieved that has failed to materialize after nearly half a decade. .
"The secret of freedom lies in the education of the individual, the secret of tyranny is to keep them ignorant", "404, error, monye not found", "It's a bite that can't be chewed, brother tariff", these are just some of the slogans of the massive student protests in 2018, which paralyzed auditoriums throughout Albania for weeks.
A list of demands from the students was addressed to the government, making clear the inevitable need that the Universities in the country had to reform. Increase in the education budget to the extent of 5% GDP, transparency with the budget from MASR and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), publication of all expenses online, equipping all students with a Student Card within the academic year 2018-2019 , checking the academic titles of professors for plagiarism, as well as increasing the weight of decision-making in student universities, were some of the demands.
Faced with increased pressure, the government came up with the "Pact for the University", through which it was claimed that answers to the students' demands would be given. But, 5 years after these protests, what has been achieved by the pact?
The budget for education is only 3.3%, transparency continues to remain on paper
One of the main demands of the students was to increase the budget for education to the extent of 5% of the Gross Domestic Product, but even 5 years later, our country is far from meeting this demand. Currently, the budget for education in Albania is only 3.3% of GDP.
Gevio Tabaku, from Qendresa Gytare, an NGO that focuses on education issues in the country, says that the 5% GDP budget for education would be a super investment, but also an increase in quality, but the situation continues to be the same every year. year, much is promised and followed the same. "There is no big and essential change in the education budget of this year, last year or three years ago", he says.
"This year's budget was approved at around 3% and I am surprised because it is not for making government comparisons, but I worked in the Ministry of Education and when we left the budget was the actual 4.1%, not the promised one", says the expert of higher education, Ndriçim Mehmeti, who adds that we are in a quandary, since that 5%, even if it is made, should not be abused. Meanwhile, Mr. Mehmeti also emphasizes the need to have visionary people. "We don't have it, we need people with passion that we don't have and to have a vision that we don't have", he says, bringing to attention the figures that every year decrease the number of graduates as well as students, and saying that instead of "brain gain" Albania is doing "brain drain", since a significant part chooses to leave the country .
A problem that is not finding a solution is transparency on the expenditure of funds in the education budget.
"I would like to know how the higher education system is managed and how the funds are distributed in such a way as to see where the need is the most." says in an interview for ACQJ Irsa Ruci, an expert on higher education, who adds that: "This budget should be detailed, i.e. the items of the current budget, how they were used, where the money went, how the funds were managed, how they were distributed, so with concrete items". she insists.
But the "u-transparenca.al" platform, which was created at the beginning of April 2019 to make transparent the CV of lecturers, data on the administrative board appointed by MARS and data on the budget and university expenses, has not performed its function. her.
"The truth is that this portal today does not have any kind of information about expenses. Only the sports university has made their budget transparent, the others are in the black". says Gevio Tabaku, whose part of his daily work includes the monitoring of this platform, adding that if you rely on the monitoring of the platform, it is not known how the universities' money has been spent.
For expert Ruci, the u-transparenca.al platform was something positive and necessary to manage the whole situation. " I'm not talking about the transparency that will remain an orphan, I'm talking about the transparency that should have been. There is a concrete person who should make that transparency where he went and % went for every government policy", says Mrs. Ruci, adding that only by making such transparency, it will be possible to understand what went wrong because of the budget and what went wrong because of the government.
On the other hand, Mr. Mehmeti, when asked about this issue, says that Albanian students are excellent, but we don't know how to handle them. "We ask them everything, but we are not transparent with them. These are the truths!", he concludes.
Student card, the promise that is made as if it was kept
The "Student Card" is one of the basic requirements of students, which, through the Services it offers, significantly facilitates student life. Currently, there is no national student card in Albania, the only one offered is the one from the Municipality of Tirana. The student card was first promised in 2016 and the mayor Erion Veliaj promised that within the year, all students would be equipped with this card. This promise became a reality in 2019 and only for students in Tirana. According to official data from Tirana Municipality, 70% of students are equipped with this card.
Ritvana Hajdari, a first-year student in the psychology department, says that she received this card and only uses it to get the student subscription. "As far as I have seen from the Services provided by the student card, we have discounts in markets or other places, but I think that the government should use it for book discounts in bookstores, because it is more reasonable and necessary for us students". she says. Moreover, in 2016 the head of the Municipality of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, promised that this card would serve as a subscription for students and would be one of the forms of electronic ticketing. The need for students to use public transport for free became possible in November 2022, but for this students must also get a pass and not use a student card. Free subscriptions for students will continue until June 2023 and then remains to be seen. On the other hand, the student does not benefit from sitting in the cafeteria, at a time when food expenses are one of the main items that weigh down their monthly budget.
Although they had the duty to create and distribute the student card, when officially asked by ACQJ, the University of Shkodra, Durrës and Korça says that none of their students are equipped with the student card. The responsible institutions, which failed to put the card in the hands of thousands of Albanian students at the end of 2019, added the promise of participating in the European Card Project to the list of failures.
And when in the country the only functional student card that exists is the one issued by the Municipality of Tirana, Gevio Tabaku calls this card arrogant and discriminatory. "The card had to be given by the university itself, that of Tirana, Polytechnic, Shkodra, Durrës, Elbasan should have their own card. In addition, the functionality of the card when you compare it with student cards in other countries, it is also used as a debit card, bank card, for dining in canteens, etc. he says.
On the other hand, for the education expert, Mr. Mehmeti, the situation with this card is ridiculous. He states that this card has no similarity with EU countries and that the student card is the property of the University and not of the municipality.
"Why are students bad about Valentiono and Pierre Cardin, students are bad about books for additional literature, laboratories", he says.
University Campus, nothing concrete yet
June 19, 2019, Prime Minister Rama and the mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, declared that they would start the works for the construction of the University Campus. At the end of 2021, the municipality of the capital opened the tender for the construction of the University Campus of Tirana as well as the University of Arts and the Police Academy. In 2023, when asked by officials about this matter, the municipality of Tirana states that this institution is carrying out the drafting of design tasks for the construction of buildings that are part of the University Campus of the University of Tirana. Meanwhile, regarding the costs of this project, the municipality of Tirana says that: "Costs, implementation time or availability of the implementation project, we inform you that the implementation projects of the university campus have not yet begun to be drawn up".
Ndriçim Mehmeti says that the campus is of great importance for student life. "We are the only country where we do not have student life, the country is not illuminated by student life. The campus provides opportunities to study, it provides social peace, socialization, there are libraries where you can sit and study, life is safer because we will not have students who will fall prey to violence, alcohol, etc." he says. Mr. Mehmeti is pessimistic when asked when this campus can be built, saying that he is afraid that when the campus is built, we will go for walks because there will be no students. Even for the expert Ruci, the need that universities have for their campuses is screaming. "The pedagogue protects the auditoriums from occupying the halls, so that he can teach or not. it's a disaster that these things are being discussed in our country, it's a disaster", she says.
Performance evaluation in teaching and scientific titles
One of the main demands of the students was the evaluation of the teaching performance of the pedagogical staff. Currently there is no unified methodology in all universities in the country, but different universities use different methods. The University of Tirana, when asked officially, says that it does it through self-evaluation reports. The same methodology is also used by the University of Shkodra. Meanwhile, the University of Durrës says that the evaluation of the quality of teaching is provided through the student questionnaire, which evaluates the performance of the academic staff engaged in teaching, evaluating the characteristics related to the communication and professional skills of the lecturer, ethics, innovative methods of used, correctness, evaluations of the student's knowledge, etc.
"This questionnaire is conducted at the end of each semester, usually week 13 and 14. The teaching quality assessment is conducted for all full-time and part-time lecturers., says UDAM in an official response, adding that the evaluations are made available individually to all evaluated academic staff members, department heads, as well as relevant deans from DKSC to the Rectors.
The academic titles of the teaching staff were also problematic during the student protests, where, according to the students, there was a wide extent of plagiarism in scientific papers. Although the University of Tirana was directly asked about the process of verification of academic titles, it does not give an answer if it has started, is in the process, or has completed the verification of scientific titles. The largest university in the country, states that "UT protects intellectual property and punishes plagiarism by recommending software such as Unicheck, Turnitin, Oxisico and plagiarism check, in accordance with the legislation in force".
On the other hand, the University of Shkodra has not started the process of verifying academic titles for plagiarism, while the University of Korça has not preferred to answer, avoiding the question and stating that "this information must be obtained from the human resources office where these titles were obtained".
"Aleksandër Moisiu" University says that the verifications for plagiarism for the academic staff have been completed. "Also, the anti-plagiarism control of those works for the scientific degrees awarded over the years by the "Aleksandër Moisiu" Durrës University has been verified. But at no time, this institution does not make figures available.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Edi Rama on April 1, 2019 stated that: "There will be no forgetting and there will be no blocking of the process of academic titles." Further, when asked by lecturers how the reassessment of academic titles will be done in legal terms, the Prime Minister promised that "whatever you believe and think the government should do to facilitate this process, we are ready to do it with an accelerated procedure as the proposal comes to us, directly". thus implying that according to him, there is a lack of will from universities and lecturers to go to the end of this process.
Former Deputy Minister for Education, Taulant Muka, says that nothing has been done in this direction and we are far from taking measures to prevent plagiarism. "While an initiative was taken to establish an anti-plagiarism system in universities, not only did Albanian universities not use the system, wasting money, but later canceled the contracts in order to avoid copy control", he says, emphasizing that this shows that science and originality in our country are not valued by universities, when these two elements should be the foundation on which universities are built. Mr. Muka adds that you cannot educate a generation and build well-prepared professionals with an academic elite built on copying and stealing academic titles.
The former deputy minister of education says that this situation requires an in-depth analysis by the Ministry of Education. "In the absence of this study, it is difficult to give an opinion based on facts", he says, while also suggesting some factors that influence the high levels of illiteracy in the educational system of Albania. For Muka, if academic staffs are built on violations of the law and copying, of course this phenomenon is expected to grow even further.
"Just look at the Academy of Sciences. The president of the academy of sciences has no scientific publications, and the question that naturally arises: how can he lead the academy of sciences? Second, is the lack of investment in education and science. Our country is still ranked among the countries with the lowest investments in education".he concludes.
Digital library
One of the much talked about promises and where the country's prime minister, Edi Rama, made a personal commitment was the digital library. In a statement to the media and a conversation with teachers, he states that: " It is incomprehensible and intolerable that today the digital library can be put into operation by a significant part of the university network and cannot be made available by the University of Tirana yet, because the University of Tirana is unprepared from a technological point of view... it must the Ministry of Education should be taken, the relevant agency should be taken to facilitate the access of students of the University of Tirana to the digital library, because there is no expression of minimal will on the part of the rectorate and personally of the rector of the University of Tirana. It is unacceptable."
The rector of the University of Tirana, Artan Hoxha, requested an interview from ACQJ on the implementation of the pact for the university, but the request was rejected. Many students, on the other hand, state that they have never used this library, and neither have their lecturers directed them to this option.
Asked by ACQJ, if there is a balance for the University Pact, now that more than 4 years have passed, the Ministry of Education says that "There is no real balance". Euejda Buzhiqi, second-year student at the Polytechnic University of Tirana, says she feels betrayed and forgotten by the government.
"Who will answer for the promises given, with what will they convince us to stay in a country where, apart from misery, there seems to be no future", she says.
Now that almost 5 years have passed since the pact for the university, it seems that the ink of the government's promises has long since dried. In a senseless situation, where many refuse to talk about what they were tasked to do, many questions remain unanswered for the sake of the students.
