TIRANA, Jan. 27 – Albania’s university students’ protest was also recently joined by faculty professors, who asked the government to suspend the law on higher education within a week and guarantee academic autonomy with a new law.
Public university students started massive protests since the early days of December, which in January turned into a boycott which took over university environments.
During the meeting of the assemblies and academic staff of the faculties of History and Philology, Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Justice, Economics and Foreign languages, professors decided to support the students’ eight demands an an opportunity to bring the universities out of crisis.
The professors asserted that recent government decisions and the law of higher education damages autonomy and the development of scientific research at universities. The University of Tirana opposed the bill on Higher Education since four years ago, because it seriously affected university autonomy and overlapped competences.
The professors claimed that five government agencies have removed the autonomy of the university in research, recruitment, selection of curricula and programs.
The professors added that two parallel structures of the rector and administrator created an overlapping of powers and brought crisis to the university by also eradicating financial autonomy.
Meanwhile, they also argued that the government decisions taken in the end of December as a response to the students demands were hurried without consulting any interest groups, while contradicting the law on higher education and the Constitution in undermining autonomy.
Professors have now adopted a list of five requirements for the progress of academic life, which has also been sent to the government, and are awaiting a reaction until February 1.
Student protests, class boycotts and isolation within university environments partly continues in some faculties, while authorities are holding meetings to explain the latest government decisions.
