137 years of Albanian education, society still in debt to teachers

2024-03-07 07:15:49, Sociale CNA

Since the First Albanian School was opened 137 years ago, education in Albania has evolved experiencing the ups and downs of political and demographic developments.

From 1990 to 2022, the number of students in 9-year education has been reduced by 50% due to high emigration of young people and declining births, according to official data from the Ministry of Education. In the same period, the army of teachers has been reduced less by only 15%. This means that the student to teacher ratio has improved.

137 years of Albanian education, society still in debt to teachers

From 20.6 students per teacher in 1990, in 2022 there were 11.4 mothers per teacher in the 9-year cycle, almost half of 32 years ago. This progress in the education sector should be translated into quality and a more motivating environment for teachers, but this is not happening.

137 years of Albanian education, society still in debt to teachers

Currently, teachers have an average salary lower than the average salary in the public sector, and on the other hand, the educational achievements of Albanian students in the international PISA test marked the lowest level in two decades in 2022.

Teachers in the 9-year cycle from several cities of the country told "Monitor" that they do not feel financially motivated as the difficulty in work has increased due to the frequent changes in teaching curricula, the decline of respect for the figure of the teacher and facing the phenomena of time in school such as drug use, bullying, etc.

137 years of Albanian education, society still in debt to teachers

In 2023, the gap between the average salary in the public sector and the average salary in education deepened further. The average gross salary of a teacher in the 9-year cycle was about 71 thousand ALL in 2023, or about 14% lower than the average salary in the public sector of 82 thousand ALL. In 2022, this difference was 11%.

The government applied a salary increase reform which in its first year did not take teachers into consideration. Salaries for the central administration almost doubled, but for education they increased by only 7%. This difference has increased the demotivation for teachers who are becoming less and less in the peripheral areas of the country.

On the Teacher's Portal there are hundreds of vacancies that cannot be filled with the main profiles, mainly in Northern schools.

"I am doing almost 40 years in education in the subject of mathematics. Currently my salary with all categories and qualifications is only 10 thousand lek more than the school cleaner and there is no difference with other teachers with lower difficulties such as visual arts and sports, while the teaching load is high", says the mathematics teacher NM

137 years of Albanian education, society still in debt to teachers

The subject of mathematics has difficulties and should be treated as such in the salary. There used to be a payment of 1,200 lek per month that the math teacher received more than the others, but this has also been removed now. The net salary received by teachers in pre-university education is 50-60 thousand ALL per month.

This salary is already being competed for by elementary professions, after the increase of the minimum wage. The salary reform that the government applied has not affected teachers. The salary increase for the central administration from 30 to 96%, while for teachers, the salary increased only 7% this year, this is enough to cope with the increase in inflation alone.

Education experts claim that the low level of salaries in education is the reason for poor future teacher inflows. With the current salaries, no good high school student would prefer to study in the fields of teaching./ Monitor.al