TIRANA, May 22 – Recent data show that 59 percent of Albanians with access to university-level education belong to the country’s minority upper class, while only one percent of the lower class has access to public or private higher education.
The results rank Albania last on education welfare in the region. In Croatia, 11 percent of the country’s poor go to university, in Serbia ten percent, in Bosnia and Herzegovina eight while in Macedonia four percent.
The data, coming from the World Inequality Database on Education and edited by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung for its annual Southeastern Europe inequality report, has led experts to say that lack of access to education will threaten youth equality in the region.
They add that the country’s poor education quality can lead to the social expulsion of low-class youth and put one group in unfavorable position in the job market in relation to the other groups.
In Albania, this issue touches Roma community children and those with limited physical or mental abilities the most and severely affects their chances for future employment.
Although elementary and middle-school education is relatively cheap and accessible in the region, university education is mostly offered by public institutions free of charge or low cost. The big number of students attending public universities also affects the quality of education, while private institutions have a bad reputation for serving as business enterprises in Albania in particular.
Education inequality has already become a cause for inequality within the country’s borders. University level students and citizens primarily choose to seek employment opportunities abroad, or otherwise live in the capital’s urban areas, while the rest have a growingly difficult time finding sustainable job positions in the market.
