Tirana Times
TIRANA, June 18 – As part of the In Search of a Democratic Education project undertaken with the support of the U.S. Embassy in Tirana and the National Endowment for Democracy, the American Enterprise School of Albania organized a roundtable. Several well-known experts on education as well as representatives from the Ministry of Education, private and public universities attended and gave a contribution with their presentations.
The purpose of this roundtable was to discuss on the current situation of higher education in the recent years in Albania, its challenges and opportunities for the future, and also to collect the recommendations of experts in this field on how to improve its quality and diversity which is offered to the Albanian students, both in the public and private sector.
Different experts and representatives were invited to contribute in the roundtable, including Avni Meshi, Director of the Accreditation Agency for Higher Education, Tonin Gjuraj, Rector of the European University of Tirana, Mit’hat Mema, Rector of the University of Durres, Ms. Edit Dibra, Coordinator of the Tempus Programme in Albania, Pellumb Karameta, Albanian Center for Assistance in Education, Alba Cela of House of Europe, etc.
Offering bribes , buying a diploma
One of the to-be-tested assumptions of the project proposal of this study is that most of the private universities require only financial benefits, instead of offering a competitive education to students who pay for it. There are abusive cases when students pass the exams by offering bribes or else by buying a diploma according to their choice, which was the case of the son of an Italian business man who allegedly bought a diploma from the Kristal University in Albania, a university which has been accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science. The license of the university is now revoked. As a result, the quality and the value of education is in jeopardy.
Professor Gjergj Sinani, who was the moderator of this roundtable, made a short presentation of the American Enterprise School of Albania (AESA) and the purpose of this project. Also he discussed about the problems encountered in higher education in the recent years in Albania and cited Thomas Jefferson: “A nation develops when knowledge lies in its foundation”. “The issue of education should be the subject of a quality discussion on how it can become more qualitative,” Mr. Sinani said.
Professor Avni Meshi said that the Ministry of Education and Science and the Agency of Accreditation for the Higher Education are responsible directly for the quality of the higher education and that most of the private universities which are opened after 2009, have not been accredited but are still in process, since there are new systems which take time to consolidate, in terms of the academic staff which they employ and their infrastructure. They also have a bigger problem than the public universities as their main aim is to attract students, since 80% of them attend public ones. However there are some private universities which develop certain policies to attract the best students through the scholarships and the conditions they offer.
The main aim of the Agency of Accreditation for the Higher Education according to Professor Meshi is to evaluate the weaknesses of the private education. The tradition is also very important, so one has to take in consideration that the majority of the private universities, also the public ones are quite new in Albania, as we are faced with universities which have been created for centuries in Europe and have a higher funding from their states. So in this framework, problems and abuses in terms of buying diplomas are somehow expected.
Professor Meshi argued that the problem of the Albanian society is that a diploma is perceived as more important than the vocational training. So a diploma is not simply a piece of paper which does not have any value in the labor market, as it is the market that will show the value of the private and public universities in the future. In Albania, there is not such a study to update the education of the students with the demands of the labor market.
For example, the massive opening of the law faculties has produced a surplus of lawyers, but on the other side there are not enough students in the natural sciences or engineering faculties although the labor market needs them. Prof. Meshi said that quality is a continuous challenge which does not have any limits, and which cannot be fully achieved.
One of the participants of the roundtable, Pellumb Karameta from the Albanian Center for Assistance in Education raised two questions as the main problems of our educational system: “What do we teach our students?” and “How we teach them”? He argued that “Knowledge is the source that makes a person competent” and this kind of training which we give to our students to learn the educational packages is not serving them at all. The purpose of education should not be just to inform and educate but also to differentiate them.
According to Professor Meshi, the Agency of Accreditation for Higher Education, the problem is not the programmes since they are taken from the Western universities and have been adapted with the Albanian reality. He argued that the problem stands at the quality of teaching, the lecturers and the implementation of educational programmes. The practical aspect of education in Albania leaves much to be desired, since there is no collaboration of the universities with the private companies in order to provide teaching practices for students. The scientific research is one of the main weaknesses of our educational system.
Professor Sinani argued that “the problem of our education in Albania is substantial, so the product of research, as in the formal aspect, has reached the European standards. The role of the Agency of Accreditation should be strengthened”.
Lacking the quality of education.
According to Tonin Gjuraj, Rector of the European University of Tirana, the massivisation has occurred but we are lacking the quality of education. The private sector requires the financial reform, where the money should not go to the institution but rather to the students. In the absence of a comprehensive financial reform, the system cannot be improved and we cannot talk about competition. “A democratic education is based on democratic citizenship. If we refer to the most successful and contemporary systems, we need to teach the democratic principles, values and skills to our students at every level.” The first process has been the opening of the private universities for the democratization of education after 1990s, and today we have a diversity of programs and subjects in both bachelor and masters degrees. According to Professor Gjuraj, every university should be in equal conditions as regards the accreditation process, as in private universities every program must be accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science.
We give a title to our diplomas but how valid are those for the labour market, he asked. Professor Gjuraj proposed a state exam at the end of the graduation in order to give a chance to the best students to be evaluated in the labour market (equality of conditions). He also proposed the collaboration with private companies that operate in Albania to exchange experiences in different fields.
Professor Mit’hat Mema of Aleksander Moisiu University emphasized in his speech that we need to see the way the environment where the students are educated works and how these elements interact with one another. “The market has certain rules which provide signals and the actors that participate in this game need to be honest. There should be some conditions for both public and private sector in the education field. The ranking should not be misused for promoting and marketing of the public/private universities, although the public ones have a problem less than the private ones, since they do not look for students. From the other side, even the public higher education faces certain challenges such as updating their curricula, provision of better technology and linking educational programs with realdemand of the labour market.
Another participant, Mr. Artan Gjergji, lecturer at the European University of Tirana, discussed on the financial reform of the higher education in Albania, saying that we should primarily be interested in the quality of education and not on how it is financed. So we need to invest on its final product. According to him, it is time that our educational systems should be filtered and the private universities should fulfill certain conditions before they are accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science, regarding their lecturers, infrastructure, educational programs, etc, in such a way that their output is as filtered as possible. So there needs to be some mechanisms and filters in order to understand where the quality is offered.
Edit Dibra, coordinator of the Tempus Programme in Albania, said we should think for the solution as well, not just for the problem of our education. The Tempus Programme provides support and assistance in the field of educational policies, for the institutions of the higher education, etc. Also it offers opportunities to apply for projects in the field of education, but the problem according to her is to motivate lecturers to write and apply for such projects due to their work overload and the mentality that “the information is seen as power to be monopolized”.
The Erasmus Mundus Programme gives the opportunity to students to exchange educational experiences in different universities in Europe.
At the end end of the roundtable, Professor Sinani suggested the authorities in the educational field should be more active in the distribution of information. “We should apply the republican educational principle, that every child should be given the right to be educated. Only then we can say that we have a democratic education,” he said.
