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, money not found", "The animal that cannot be swallowed is the tariff, brother", these are just some of the slogans of the massive student protests in 2018, which paralyzed auditoriums across 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 Qëndresa Kytetare, an NGO that focuses on the problems of education in the country, says that a 5% GDP budget for education would be a great investment, but also an increase in quality, but the situation continues to be the same every year, a lot is promised and the same continues. " There is no major and essential change in the education budget this year, last year or three years ago ," he says.
"This year's approved budget is somewhere around 3% and I find it strange because it is not for making government comparisons, but I worked in the Ministry of Education and when we left the budget was 4.1% actual, not promised," says higher education expert Ndriçim Mehmeti, who adds that we are in a slump, since that 5%, even if it is achieved, should not be abused. Meanwhile, Mr. Mehmeti also emphasizes the need to have visionary people. " We don't have them, 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 are decreasing annually in high school graduates and students, and saying that Albania, instead of making "brain gain", is making "brain drain", as 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 has been managed and how funds have been distributed in such a way as to see where the need is greatest," says Irsa Ruci, an expert on higher education, in an interview with ACQJ, adding: " This budget needs to be detailed, that is, the items of the current budget, how they were used, where that money went, how the funds were managed, how they were distributed, in other words, with specific 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 information about expenses. Only the sports university has made their budget transparent, the others are in the black," says Gevio Tabaku, who part of his daily work also includes monitoring this platform, adding that if you base it on the platform's monitoring, 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 transparency that will remain an orphan, I'm talking about the transparency that should be there. There is a specific person who should make that transparency where it has gone and % have gone for every government policy", says Ms. Ruci, adding that only by making such transparency, will it be possible to understand what has gone wrong because of the budget and what has gone wrong because of the government.
On the other hand, Mr. Mehmeti, when asked about this issue, says that Albanian students are excellent, but we do not know how to treat them. " We ask them everything, but we are not transparent towards 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 psychology student, says she received this card and uses it only to get her student pass. “ As far as I’ve seen from the Services offered by the student card, we have discounts in markets or other places, but I think the government should use it for discounts on books in bookstores, because it is more reasonable and necessary for us students,” she says. Furthermore, in 2016, the head of the Municipality of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, promised that this card would serve as a pass for students and would be one of the forms of electronic ticketing. The need for students to use public transportation for free became possible in November 2022, but for this, students must get passes and not use their student cards. Free passes for students will continue until June 2023 and then it remains to be seen. On the other hand, the student does not benefit from the reduction in the canteen, 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 the only functional student card in the country is the one issued by the Municipality of Tirana, Gevio Tabaku considers this card to be arrogant and discriminatory. " The card should have been issued by the university itself, the one in Tirana, the Polytechnic, the one in Shkodra, Durres, the one in Elbasan should have had their own card. In addition, the functionality of the card when compared to student cards in other countries, it is also used as a debit card, bank card, for discounts 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 for Valentino and Pierre Cardin, students are bad for books for additional literature, laboratories," he says.
University Campus, nothing concrete yet
On June 19, 2019, Prime Minister Rama and the Mayor of Tirana, Erion Veliaj, declared that the works for the construction of the University Campus would begin. At the end of 2021, the capital's municipality 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 officially about this issue, the Tirana municipality stated that this institution is carrying out the drafting of the design tasks for the construction of the constituent buildings of the University Campus of the University of Tirana. Meanwhile, regarding the costs of this project, the Tirana municipality says: "We inform you that the costs, implementation time or making the implementation project available, the university campus implementation projects have not yet begun to be drafted."
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, provides social tranquility, socialization, there are libraries where you sit and learn, life is safer because we will not have students who will fall prey to violence, alcohol, etc.," he says. Mr. Mehmeti expresses pessimism when asked when this campus can be built, saying that he is afraid that when the campus is built, we will go for a walk because there will be no students. Even for expert Ruci, the need that universities have for their campuses is screaming. " The teacher guards the auditoriums so that they do not occupy the halls, so that he can teach or not. It is a disaster that these are discussed in our country, it is 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 administered at the end of each semester, usually in the 13th and 14th weeks. The teaching quality assessment is conducted for all full-time and part-time lecturers ," UDAM says in an official response, adding that the assessments are made available individually to all evaluated academic staff members, department heads, and the respective deans from the DKSC to the Rectorate.
Another issue that was raised during the student protests was the academic titles of the teaching staff, where according to the students there was a wide spread of plagiarism in scientific papers. Although the University of Tirana was directly asked about the process of verifying academic titles, it did not provide an answer as to whether it has started, is in the process of, or has completed the verification of scientific titles. The largest university in the country states that “ UT protects intellectual property and condemns 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 even started the process of verifying academic titles for plagiarism, while the University of Korça has preferred not to give an answer, avoiding the question and stating that " this information should be obtained from the human resources office where these titles were obtained."
"Aleksandër Moisiu" University says that plagiarism checks for academic staff have been carried out. " Anti-plagiarism checks have also been carried out on those papers for scientific degrees awarded over the years by "Aleksandër Moisiu" University of Durrës". But at no point does this institution make figures available.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Edi Rama stated on April 1, 2019: "There will be no forgetting and there will be no blocking of the academic titles process. " Further, when asked by lecturers how the reevaluation of academic titles will be done in terms of law, the Prime Minister pledged that " everything that you believe and think the government should do to facilitate this process, we are ready to do it with an accelerated procedure as soon as the proposal comes to us, directly," thus implying that according to him, there is a lack of will on the part of universities and lecturers to go through this process to the end.
Former Deputy Minister of Education, Taulant Muka, says that nothing has been done in this regard 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 they canceled 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 several factors that influence the high levels of absenteeism in the Albanian education system. For Muka, if academic staffs are built on violations of the law and copying, this phenomenon is certainly expected to increase 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 is: how can he lead the Academy of Sciences? Secondly, there is a lack of investment in education and science. Our country still ranks among the countries with the lowest investments in education," he concludes.
Digital library
One of the much-discussed 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 lecturers, he stated: " It is incomprehensible and intolerable that the digital library today can be put into operation by a significant part of the university network and not be made available by the University of Tirana yet, because the University of Tirana is technologically unprepared... the Ministry of Education must be involved, the relevant agency must be involved to facilitate access of students of the University of Tirana to the digital library, because there is no minimal expression of 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 be responsible for the promises made, with what will they convince us to stay in a place 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.
