TIRANA, Sept. 15 – This week saw a new beginning for thousand children across Albania and their parents, as they started or return to school for a new academic year.
More than 27,000 children started attending their first grade classes this year. In total, the new academic year involves 392,000 pupils.
Every year, schools are reconstructed taking into account the needs of pupils and students. This year was no exception.
About 126 schools were partially and fully reconstructed, although in some districts such as Fushe Kruja, Berat and Kukes dozens of school buildings are still lacking improved conditions.
Meanwhile in the capital, Mayor Erion Veliaj pledged that schools in the capital will no longer apply double shifts to accommodate growing pupil numbers and announced that the municipality “would build 20 new schools” in the next three years.
But accommodation space is not the only problem pupils faced this academic year. Many parents have reported a shortage of textbooks for several classes. Libraries that distribute the text books have claimed that the delay was caused by publishing houses while the latter blame the Ministry of Education for not issuing the stamps required for the publication of books in time.
Ministry officials said authorities have approved the publication of new textbooks for a total of 155,000 students, whereas the number of teachers on has jumped to 30,000.
