Author: Ina Allkanjari
About 21 thousand graduates applied in the first round for the academic year 2022-2023 for higher education programs in the country. Of them, it turns out that 5900 have not managed to be declared winners in any study program. However, it was also observed for this year that the most popular and therefore most targeted branches were engineering, medicine, law and economic programs.
According to the data of the institute of statistics, a drastic decrease in the number of students in universities in the country is evident, with about 50 thousand students less compared to 8 years ago. So about 124 young people in 2022 from 176 in 2014. Meanwhile, in the last 5 years, a decrease in the number of students is observed with about 8 fewer students enrolled.
Mateo, a high school graduate from the city of Librazhdi writes for "Sinjalizo" about the choice of his favorite branch, which will offer him a guaranteed 'passport' to leave Albania.
"My dream was engineering, I had my first preference but I couldn't get it. I was successful in nursing and I registered, I will continue my studies in this branch as it gives me a chance for a future outside of Albania after completing my studies. I was afraid to take the risk and see if I could get hold of engineering,” writes for "Sinjalizo" Mateo, who was declared the winner to study nursing in Tirana.
Angela, another high school graduate who completed her studies with a high average in one of the capital's high schools, tells "Sinjalizo" that she sees her future in Germany.
"For years, I have wanted to continue my computer science studies in Germany, so I devoted myself to learning the German language. I won the branch I wanted in Dortmund, I have not applied to any study program in Albania". Angela says.
Empty universities
But besides the youth that have their eyes in the countries of the European Union and in the west, the mass immigration and the aging of the population has brought a visible consequence, the closure of many branches and the endangering of many other academic programs, a phenomenon that is predicted to become even more dramatic in the next five years.
The Ministry of Education has decided that this year it will open the doors of universities to all students who cannot reach the selected branch within 3 rounds of registration, adding a 4th round, where based on the unfilled quotas that the universities have , graduates can register without competition wherever they want.
Education expert Dr. Valbona Nathanaili tells "Sinjalizo" the reasons that, according to her, have influenced the decrease in the number of students in Albanian universities. Nathanaili lists three reasons, in order of importance: the labor market, the long and demotivating process of admission to Albanian universities and the quality of education.
"A chaotic and unstable labor market, poor in opportunity and reward, focused mainly on Services and unable to grow and diversify, without industry and research-scientific centers, cannot satisfy a youth with dreams and ambition for more",- says Nathanaili, adding that every profession practiced in Albania is rewarded many times less compared to other European countries, while life is getting more and more expensive every day.
"As far as the quality of education offered in public universities is concerned, I could start with the teachers' strike this mid-September for a salary increase and that's enough. We have started talking about the "university 4.0", but in Albania, unfortunately, public universities cannot be given more than 1.5!"- she concludes.
District universities in crisis
The representative of the Education union, Isa Halilaj, says that the drop in the number of students has been evident in pre-university education, in the capital and in the districts.
"One of the reasons for the decrease in the number of students is the departure of young people from Albania trying to study in other countries. Another reason I think is the private universities. There are also teaching branches that show a decrease in demand, they are no longer preferred", says Halilaj.
The universities with the lowest number of enrollments, which appear problematic due to the low demands of students so far, are the district universities.
"Eqerem Çabej" University of Gjirokastra, followed by "Fan S. Noli" University in Korça and "Aleksandër Xhuvani" in Elbasan, record the lowest number of registrations in the first round of graduate applications in the country within the quotas that available for this new academic year 2022-2023. With a negligible number of registrations, some of the teaching programs in these universities still do not meet a minimum number of 5 registered students per branch.
University of Gjirokastra
With only 32% of the occupied quotas, the University of Gjirokastra records a low number of registrations in most of the educational programs. The branches of teaching result in a negligible number of registrations, where Albanian Language and Literature leads with only 1 registration, followed by History-Geography with 2 registrations and Biology-Chemistry with 3 registrations.
In this university, the most preferred branch turns out to be General Nursing with 57 registrations in the first round, out of 70 quotas that this educational program has in total.
University of Korca
"Fan S. Noli" University in Korça has a total of 1117 quotas and only 422 graduates have registered in the first round of applications, so only 37% of the quotas have been filled so far.
In this university, the branches with the least demand turn out to be those of teaching and the programs of the faculty of agriculture. A good number of these branches result in only 3-6 records.
What is noticeable in this university is the higher demand in some programs whose quotas have been filled in the first round. It is about General Nursing, Midwifery and the Physical Education and Sports program.
The rector of "Fan S. Noli" University in Korça, Dhimiter Bello, tells "Sinjalizo" that district universities attract the most contingents within the district.
"The most requested programs at the University of Korça are Nursing, Midwifery, Finance, Accounting, Physical Education and Sports. While the least requested are all the programs of the faculty of agriculture, although this university was founded on the basis of the Higher Agricultural Institute that it used to be, and the teaching programs such as language-literature, geography, except for English, which always fulfills the quotas her. In the teaching programs, there were about 4-5 requests for a study program, so they don't even reach 10. The worst is mathematics-physics, which does not have any registration, since even 3 registrations we had were deregistered. rector Bello said.
University of Elbasan
Another university which results in a low number of registrations is that of Elbasan. Specifically, in the first round, 924 registrations resulted from the total of 2386 quotas available at "Aleksandër Xhuvani" university.
Even in this university, the most problematic branches are those of teaching, where at the end of the first round, teaching programs such as Albanian Language and Literature, History and Geography, Journalism, Biology-Chemistry and German Language have a negligible number of registrations of 1-5 students per branch. So, out of 166 quotas in total that the aforementioned programs have, only 7 quotas were filled in the first round.
Again, in this university, the highest demands are seen towards medical programs, such as nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy, etc.
University of Shkodra
At the "Luigj Gurakuqi" university in Shkodër, the situation of registrations in the first round appears with higher figures where about 45% of the quotas have been filled. Specifically, at the end of the first round, 1660 students were registered out of 749 quotas in total that this university has.
Deputy The rector of the University of Shkodra, Paulina Hoti, tells "Sinjalizo" that the number of applicants for this university has been high, as she emphasizes that the highest preferences have been towards medical science programs.
"According to the data related to the number of applications at USH, there was a high number of preferences for the study programs offered by the University of Shkodra "Luigj Gurakuqi", over 6500 applicants for a number of quotas of about 1500 for all first cycle programs of studies. The number of enrollments has more or less the same trend as enrollments in other public universities. Some programs are more preferred, for example the programs of medical sciences or economics", declared the deputy Rector Hoti.
The situation in the capital
The first round of registrations for the first cycle of Bachelor's studies at public universities in the capital presents more optimistic figures compared to public universities in other cities of the country. Although the number of graduates applying for this new school year 2022-2023 is about 21 thousand, a figure that is lower than a year ago, the main universities generally maintain the same trend in terms of young people's preferences towards study programs. Even this year, in the first round, there is a high demand for medical, engineering and economic programs.
The rector of the University of Tirana, Artan Hoxha, tells "Sinjalizo" that there are about 15 applications or 67.3% of the students who have applied to the programs of the University of Tirana.
"In the first round, we registered about 60% of the applicants. For this new school year, the most requested branches at UT are Law, Economics branches. In Natural Sciences, the most popular branches are Computer Science, in Social Sciences it is Psychology, in Foreign Languages it is English and French, in History-Philology the Language-Literature branch has the highest enrollment.
Furthermore, the rector of UT states that he is confident that there will be no educational programs that risk suspension, although even in this university some of the branches appear with low registrations in the first round.
"The branches with fewer registrations, i.e. unregistered for the first phase, are in Russian and Greek where 3 students were registered but were de-registered again. We also have few registrations in Physics and Natural Sciences, while Social Sciences are generally good, they have captured 60% in the first round".
Near the secretariat of the Faculty of History-Philology at the University of Tirana, they put at our disposal the data about applications and registrations in the first round for the teaching programs of this faculty. We learn that there are about 4000 applicants who wish to study at this faculty.
"We have achieved about 50% of the quotas so far, since the first phase of applications has been completed. So, more specifically, about 50% of the quotas in the Language-Literature branches have been filled, we have a satisfactory realization for the Journalism and Geography branches, and the Archeology and History direction is somewhat weaker with about 20 registrations each. In these branches, we had the same dynamics as in every year, only History has a slight decrease. But based on the years we have left behind, I think there will be no problems since we have only completed the first phase of registrations", representatives of the secretariat of the Faculty of History-Philology at UT tell "Sinjalizo".
Professor Drita Rira, deputy dean at the Faculty of Foreign Languages tells "Signalizo" that the branches that have had the most requests are English and German. According to her, these remain the most requested languages also due to the geopolitical situation.
"While the international market has an impact on pre-university education, we hear news that schools are closing. The decline in the number of the population, emigration that is not always for economic reasons, therefore, the world is becoming even more open. So, it is in everyone's interest to go and come back. Just as we have master's requests that come to us from immigrant children, who have passed the immigrant status, who have been integrated and who want to return to Albania to continue their studies".
Teaching branches risk suspension
In a meeting held with graduates of the capital's schools, at the end of the 2021-2022 school year, the Minister of Education and Sports, Mrs. Kushi announced several study programs in public Higher Education as a national priority and all graduates with a minimum average of 8.5 who chose one of them benefited from a financial support of about 320 thousand old lek. At the end of the first round of university registrations, it is noted that the scholarship offered has not enticed students to choose the priority branches announced by the government. From the results obtained for the first round, it is noted that some of the teaching programs have very low enrollments, excluding the English language.
Asked how she evaluates such an initiative, education expert Dr. Valbona Nathanaili says that the expectations are that such a policy will turn out to be a failure. According to her, the main concern is that with this educational policy, even after two or three years we will get the same result.
"With such a scheme, the social elevator remains at floor zero, it does not work. The excellent are rarely found outside the predetermined social patterns: intellectual parents and encouraging environment. Generally, such parents choose to educate their children abroad. To offer them 30,000 ALL per month in exchange for enrolling their children in very specific study programs in Albanian public universities, while they have paid double or triple for education, for fifteen consecutive years, since they first enrolled them in private nurseries and gardens, it's not enough to say that you are beating water in the mortar", declares the expert, while showing that in the tours they have carried out as part of the career development days, in many cities of the country, no more than two to three high school graduates for each city expressed the desire to continue as a teacher.
Nathanaili adds that the demands towards the branches of teaching are always decreasing, with the risk of closure, taking the example of physics and mathematics. According to her, very soon we will not graduate teachers in these profiles, citing several reasons:
The representative of the Education union, Isa Halilaj, says that teaching branches have a lack of demand from young people, because teaching is no longer seen as a desired profession since it does not provide material benefits when they enter the labor market.
"Teachers themselves no longer send their children to study for teachers. This is because teachers' salaries are low, the profession of education should be made pleasant,"- he says, adding that in order to start working as a teacher, you have to complete the internship after your studies, wait a year for obtaining the license and then wait again for the selection as a teacher on the portal",- and as a conclusion receives a monthly payment of 500 thousand old leks", Halilaj concludes.
The rector of the "Fan S. Noli" University in Korça, Dhimiter Bello, says that young people are still not aware of what the priority programs offer.
"This year we also had the priority programs, but it was not understood in time, despite the fact that we tried to sensitize young people, from a part it was not well understood. Whoever chose the teaching programs and had a good average benefited from a scholarship of about 300 thousand old lek, which would help the students to afford the cost of the study". says Bello.
As he dwells on the decision to lower the average grade from 7.5 to 6.5 for all high school graduates who aim for a profession such as translator, psychologist, social worker, historian, geographer, etc. that are included in the branches of teaching, the rector says that until now there has been no increase demand towards these programs.
Rectorate of Tirana: There are improvements
Meanwhile, the rector of the University of Tirana, Artan Hoxha singles out some teaching programs that, according to him, have improved.
"For the branches of teaching this year, there is a noticeable improvement in Social Sciences, Philology and Natural Sciences,"- says Hoxha, emphasizing that every student with a high school average above 8.5 who continues a teaching branch has the right to receive a scholarship of 320 thousand ALL and the study fee is covered by the Council of Ministers.
Will the situation in education improve?
Some of the universities in the districts risk the suspension of some of the study programs. Asked about this problem, the rector of the "Fan S. Noli" University in Korça, Dhimiter Bello, shows how to act to improve this created situation.
"Certain programs cannot be in all universities, this is oversaturation of the market. There must be a certain geography. For example, it is not necessary for the Nursing branch to be in all universities, since we really produce a lot, but most of them are for the foreign market,"- says Bello, adding that there should be a geographical distribution of study programs, according to the performance of each university.
Meanwhile, professor Drita Rira, deputy The Dean at the Faculty of Foreign Languages focuses on the opportunities and collaborations with the international market that this faculty offers to their students, as a way to improve and increase the number of registrations and requests towards foreign languages.
"Each student who registers at the Faculty of Foreign Languages is the beneficiary of a very large number of agreements that have been concluded by the University of Tirana and by efforts made by colleagues from different departments of the Faculty of Foreign Languages. Regardless of the opportunities that will be given to the graduates both in the internal framework, to develop their talents with international scholarships, I wanted to emphasize that studying a foreign language is the foundation of mediation". says the vice dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages at the University of Tirana.
