TIRANA, June 28 – Albania’s public universities spend more on luxury reconstruction and purchases rather than research and scholarships, a report examining transparency and financial management in three of Albania’s main public universities has found.
Monitoring conducted by the local Civic Resistance NGO has shown the public universities of Tirana, Elbasan and Durres are closer to office luxury rather than science as they spent nothing at all on research and studies over the last academic year, mostly wasting state budget and student fee funds on luxury investment and office reconstruction.
The University of Tirana which has about 40,000 students in six faculties is described as a flagrant case of taxpayer abuse as it has awarded zero funds on supporting excellent students and those in need with scholarships but spent a record 45.5 million lek (€360,000) in compensation for illegal dismissals following court rulings in favor of fired academic staff at the country’s largest public university.
“That is a case of university leaders’ mismanagement and irresponsiveness becoming a burden on students’ pockets as the university is forced to pay from student fees for illegally fired employees,” says the report.
The University of Elbasan, central Albania, is also reported to have wasted about €60,000 on the purchase of a brand new luxury car and spent 28 million lek (€221,000) on public security and guarding of its buildings, much more than the two other public universities, in spending that is not reported to justify its high cost considering the value of building and equipment.
“At a time when universities pay so dearly on physical security, students suffer the consequences of lack of minimum services such as lack of diploma paperwork, internet access, heating and cooling, not to mention labs and libraries,” says the report.
The University of Durres, the newest public university in the country which has been operating for eleven years now, spent about 100 million lek (€789,000) on office reconstruction and equipment in the 2017-2018 academic year and a record 14.3 million lek (€113,000) on electricity, 14 times more than the country’s largest University of Tirana.
The university however spend about 24 million lek (€190,000) on supporting excellency and awarding scholarships for students in need.
Monitoring on the three public universities was conducted between September 2017 to June 2018 in a bid to shed light on how taxpayer funds and student fees are managed and urge law enforcement agencies to take action on alleged abuse.
Albania has some 16 public higher education institutions and another 25 private-run ones.
Since 2015, Albania has had a new higher education law which some public university professors and students have strongly opposed, claiming it makes it too expensive for them to attend school and shifts funding from public universities to private ones.
Several private universities were closed down in 2014 after they were found to not meet even minimal quality standards and dubbed Ponzi schemes that robbed Albanians of life savings in 1997.
Albania had gone from having no private universities a decade ago to more than 40 private universities and professional colleges by 2015.
