Poor education and health is negatively affecting the human potential in Albania

2024-10-18 07:19:00, Sociale CNA

Poor education and health is negatively affecting human potential in Albania Human capital in Albania is being undermined by poor education and health services.

These services, instead of improving, seem to have further deteriorated, causing the potential of the people living in Albania to decrease instead of increasing.

The World Bank in the last regional report pointed out that throughout the Balkans and in Albania there is an increase in the prevalence of diseases that are negatively affecting the quality and productivity of people.

"The relatively lower productivity of citizens in the Balkan countries is explained by a high prevalence of risk factors for the health of adults, above the averages of the ECA region and the EU.

The average incidence of obesity among the adult population in Albania is 22.3%, while the regional average is 23 percent, compared to 20 percent in the ECA and 17 percent in the EU.

The average percentage of adult smokers in the Region is 35 percent, in Albania 22.9 compared to 28 percent in the ECA and 26 percent in the EU, while the prevalence of smoking is 28.9% in Albania, where the average in the region is 26 percent , compared to 20 percent in the ECA and 21 percent in the EU.

Across the Region in the region, the prevalence of smoking and alcohol consumption is significantly higher among men

than women, while the prevalence of obesity is slightly higher in women.

But the biggest gaps in human potential are being created by the poor quality of education.

International student tests have shown that the results in Albania, Kosovo and North Macedonia were among the lowest in the Region.

Beyond the low results of basic education, the same poor performance is observed in higher education, where the quality is low.

The average university quality score in the WB6 countries is 8.7 (on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 corresponds to the highest ranked university in the world), while the average for ECA is 12.5, for the EU it is 28.8 and the leader in the world (Singapore) has a score of 50.3.

The Region's performance is supported only by Serbia, which has an average university quality score of 22.6, while the rest of the Region's countries have significantly lower scores.

In the Western Balkans Region on average, 29 percent of adults aged 30-34 have a university degree, compared to 33 percent in the ECA and 43 percent in the EU.

The World Bank points out that improving the quality of higher education is essential for countries to move towards a new growth model, which will lead them to achieve high-income status./ Monitor Magazine