MA on cultural resource management launched

TIRANA, Nov. 1 – The University of Tirana and UNESCO, as part of the One UN Joint Programme Culture and Heritage for Social and Economic Development signed an agreement last week that launched a new MA Programme on Cultural Resource Management.
Albanian Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports Ferdinand Xhaferaj, Rector of the University of Tirana Dhori Kule, Director of the UNESCO Office in Venice Engelbert Ruoss, and representatives from the Academy of Science, National Cultural Institutes and MA students and professors were present at the event, the UN said in a statement.
“It is time to prepare specialists in the area of culture and heritage”, Dhori Kule said, thanking UNESCO for the great investment made in the Faculty of History of the University of Tirana, also promising to make the programme a priority.
During the event, UNESCO’s Ruoss noted: “I think this is and important step and awareness raising possibility in the field of culture to further develop international visibility”. He highlighted that this is the first MA Programme on Cultural Resource Management in the Balkan and that “with experts and professors from all over the world and with the right equipment we will have a high quality of teaching”.
The MA Programme established at the Faculty of History and Philology is part of the One UN Joint Programme on “Culture and Heritage for Social and Economic” in cooperation with UNESCO and with the financial support of the Government of Spain.
For the first time in the history of higher education in Albania, heritage management now benefits from disciplinary status and is an option for professional training. This intellectual investment marks also paradigmatic shift in the way heritage is conceived in modern Albanian society, as well as the way the heritage management profession is structured on the basis of the best European and international experiences.
The large number of potential candidates for the programme shows the strong interest on this long needed field of study. The programme, with its focus on the dynamic relationship between heritage and the contemporary society, provides a strong basis on which to build a solid and sustainable future.
The promotion of the best national and international experiences in the field of heritage studies, conservation, theories and principles of presentation, education, documentation, and contemporary issues in heritage management will be the main characteristic of the new programme.