By ALAN ANDONI
A number of people whom I have spoken to look back nostalgically to the education system of the pre-1990’s when all education was state run and competition was based on academic excellence (as well as a ‘clean’ family background). Those who didn’t cut the academic mustard were directed towards the trades, plumbing, electricians, building and the like.
The few who managed to overcome the academic hurdles were rewarded with an assigned course at a limited number of higher education institutes leading to a profession and the prize of a guaranteed job. It was not always a satisfying one or one that reflected one’s preferences or abilities, but a job nonetheless, and it was infinitely better than manual labouring in the provinces. Fast forward to 2016 when universities have proliferated and where the desire of the average student is to become an economist or lawyer to the point where the country now has an embarrassingly high number of them. In contrast, there is a lack of properly qualified plumbers and electricians, as if status in modern day Albania demands that these trades and others should be avoided. Even those university subjects which turn students into engineers and agronomists have become poor relatives. Compounding this is the plethora of private universities ranging from the determinedly academic right down to the diploma shops.
Education as a means to an end – status and a job rather than an end in itself seems to have become all-prevailing and the acquisition of it as quickly and as easily as possible may now be the norm rather than the exception. For many aspiring graduates, paying for a qualification without putting in the work has just become part of a climate where ‘money gets you everywhere’. They take their cue from those who form a significant part of Albania’s current elite who are able to provide for their own families in just about every sphere of life with exaggerated conspicuous consumption. This gives the rest of us the signal that it is acceptable, indeed a necessity, to achieve results with the least possible effort. Such people are not the best role models for the younger generation but they are the only ones they have.
Many of students currently woring towards a diploma in Economics and Law, or any academic study, for that matter, these would be more comfortable – and certainly more suited – to fixing a pipe, mending a car or lighting up a district of a city. And this is not a criticism of them. Indeed, they would serve a far more useful role in Albanian society than many other professions whose adherents sometimes have an exaggerated sense of their own importance.
Ultimately, the problem of gaining a diploma rather than an education with the resulting low standards in education, will be too big to sweep under the carpet. If left unchecked, the problem of low standards eventually eats away at the system. Badly educated doctors or dentists cause more harm than good; marketing people who know Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs but can’t implement good business strategies, can’t build businesses or pedagogues who are not interested in motivating their students to learn will leave their mark in a negative way both on society today and, more crucially, tomorrow.
In an attempt to be seen to address this issue, various accreditation bodies have been set up over the years to monitor the universities and a new one has just been announced. This raises several questions. Firstly, who monitors the monitors? Even the ‘monitors of monitors of monitors’ are not immune from political pressures and the temptation of financial reward. As long as those with power feel they have the right to use their influence to distort the system for their own ends, this problem will never go away, no matter how credible the monitoring body is. Secondly, How useful is the exercise? Does the monitoring body merely make recommendations which the government can choose to ignore? How transparent is the process? Who is the audience and what is the ultimate objective? Is it to raise standards or to window-dress, to metaphorically paint the university education system in nice colours for outside consumption?
In any case, the monitoring of current standards, or changing how universities are financed or which universities are allowed to exist may all be beside the point. Good practice in business and administration demands that standards should be clearly set, monitored and improved. And that is the point. Taxpayer’s money could perhaps be better spent not on monitoring standards but improving, setting and implementing them, Ultimately, the crucial issue in education lies in the teaching and the learning process itself – from the earliest years to continued professional development. In this, it would be useful to take their cue from advanced economies.
In such economies, teachers are taught to encourage rather not to criticise: they are taught to find potential in a student not to find fault, and to be student-focussed not teacher-focussed. In the advanced economies, school children and students are taught to process and critically evaluate information. This means that a citizen of the country learns the skills of weighing up information they hear in terms of balance and factual accuracy . A good education system creates an enquiring mind that questions information that is presented to them and challenges the status quo and contemporary wisdom. Such minds push the limits of scientific knowledge create progress in society.
However, classes of students who question and learn how to process the information that is given to them can be a minefield for substandard teachers and those who simply want to control without educating. Having a society where the population analyses and evaluates is a nightmare scenario for leaders who seek to control without accountability, In the end, it is easier to manipulate a society where the citizens have learnt to uncritically absorb and memorise the information that the teacher, professor or politician presents to them. However, it is not a society that will be competitive in an enlarged Europe. In this respect, merely implementing structural changes in education and monitoring without addressing the content of the teaching system seems like rearranging the furniture on the Titanic.
A nation’s greatness lies not in the amount of land it owns, the size of its armed forces or even the number of Olympic medals it wins. It lies in the nature of how its citizens are educated. If we do not learn the lessons of developed societies and set a programme of improving the teaching and learning process starting from elementary school to university and to continuing Professional Education as the number one priority, then another generation of Albanians is condemned to mediocrity which will make the communist system seem like a golden age in comparison.
Alan Andoni is the author of the ‘Xenophobe’s Guide® to Albania.
