PISA, Europe’s Revenge Against Albania’s Teacher-Phobes

By Ylli Pata

The positive PISA result for Albania, which ranked it at the top of the region, is being and will be exploited by Edi Rama and the majority. That was to be expected.

But beyond the government and the majority, PISA is a benchmark that sits in the eyes and logic of most people living inside the country, or in the diaspora.

The wish of most Albanians for their children is education; the poor have this obsession, and so do the rich. In all likelihood it is part of the DNA of Albanians, historically.

However, this PISA result is a development worth treating with arguments by those who have full knowledge of the facts, but also by experts in the field, namely intellectuals.

I do not come from a family of teachers, who in Albania are real disciples of a non-radical religion that orientals hate. The religion that Pashko Vasa speaks of in his famous poem: Albanianism.

Yet, having lived 21 years with an ABC teacher and children of teachers, who worked across the whole constellation of greater Tirana, has enabled me to understand and know quite well this reality, about which little is spoken publicly. And in most cases, bad things are said.

In Albania, from the periphery to the center, there is a reality of respect for a profession tied to the lives of children: the teacher. This reality is dynamic, and the years we have lived through show a positive evolution that has happened.

But still, the historical reality is that basic education is a success story in Albania, ever since it was conceived, that is in the early years of independence, the republican governance of Zog and then the Kingdom, where with the boarding school conceived by Mirash Ivanaj, basic education turned into excellence.

PISA is a success story since the time of Zog’s mythical five-year period and then the occupation, continuing with the communist regime, which, it must be said, made education massive.

After the 90s, this massification or standardization of quality was eroded little by little, also as a consequence of the recruitment system, and especially the management of education.

Where militants and fanatics, add here the endless mythomaniacs who think they are poets and writers, put a big pickaxe into the system, along with many schools in the country.

Edi Rama’s governance is perhaps not at the level of Ahmet Zog’s basic education or Enver Hoxha’s massification, but it brought two standards: not touching the teacher by management fanatics, and the creation of a recruitment system. Then the textbooks are a more specific argument.

This shielding of teachers by Edi Rama created in reality an interesting development; this army was and is one of the pillars of the administration, regardless of what political opinion they have and whatever government comes. This system made the teacher important, protected them legally, and year after year a stability of seriousness of work was created, where party and political appointments do not count.

This brought two factors: the empowerment of teachers and the increased importance of public education. Where parents with good economic means do not send their children to private schools, and even when they do, they look for public teachers to help in subjects where private, especially foreign schools, are deficient — such as the Albanian school.

Today it can be said without fear that public education, especially basic education, has won the battle with the private ones, they are more consolidated. Meanwhile this empowerment of teachers has brought a clash between university professors, who have the chance to be public, and basic teachers.

In Albania, when March 7 comes, there is a public massacre against teachers, especially of basic education. Televisions, intellectuals, known names never tire of accusing teachers of taking gifts, even mentioning perversions. A well-known philosopher mentions panties and recipes as a mechanism that can make his thought penetrating, which in the end penetrates into the wall. But this is a good thing because it is an envy that can also bring results.

Because after this success of basic education, universities are next. They are filled with plagiarists sprouting in our bellies as professors, but Albanians remember as professors those who wrote the books on the Illyrians, not today’s ones who use AI like a sixth-grader who wants to do homework quickly.

The logic of basic education, primary education as it is called in Albania, seems to have preserved the tradition created by Ahmet Zog with the famous boarding school. And here the victory is great because it is a national and secular education, while in foreign and religious schools the Albanian language is at a lower level than the languages of the financing countries, and history is terrible.

Naturally the mania for caring for national heroes and values is not like in the time of Zog and communism; today there are quite a few cracks. There are quite a few pupils who know little about much of the constellation of history’s protagonists, but still, especially in the basic sciences, a standard has been preserved. And this is said by a serious study like PISA. A study that will bring far more reputation to the country than sensational writings about tourism or other sectors. Because those who read these results don’t scroll, they look at the facts.