Only 37% of teachers in Albania are well qualified

Tirana, December 18, 2015 - Albanian Coalition or Child Education presented today the findings of the Report “Professional Development and Teacher Evaluation in Albania”. This report, the first of its kind in the country, provides a comprehensive overview of the current situation of professional development and evaluation of teachers identifies and evaluates policies that do not work as well as presents a series of recommendations, which will enable teachers’ professional and quality training.

In the past 22 years in the context of the education system reform, the teaching profession has been time after time reformed too. The current context consisting of poor academic achievements as evidenced by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the results of the state graduation exam, the results of the evaluation of teachers and initiatives to further reform the system of preparation and evaluation of teachers represent the main incentives for this research report.

According to the findings, in 2012, the total number of teachers who have undergone the qualification process was 3142 and only 93 teachers or 2.96% of them have received the maximum evaluation. This figure is even lower in 2013, where 2.53% of them received the maximum evaluation. Based on data and calculations presented in the report, it shows that only 37% of teachers in Albania achieve high results during the examination.

The data evidenced in the Report on the level of education of teachers, noted that in 2011-2012 about 20.2% of teachers in the public education and 6% of teachers in private education have a High Secondary Diploma. Pre-primary education has the highest percentage of teachers that have a high secondary education qualification, 41% of the teachers in pre-primary education have a high secondary qualification, and this constitutes a significant indicator of the quality of preschool education. In addition, the figure 21.8% of teachers with high secondary education qualification that exercise their profession in the basic education represents how qualified they are and what kind of knowledge they teach to the children.

Another problem that the Report highlighted is the quality of students who choose to become future teachers. 20 years since today the students enrolled in the faculties of education have poor academic achievements, furthermore the three actual systems of evaluation for the acquisition of the right to exercise the profession, professional development and performance appraisal act separately; they are not based in an adequate methodology and far from the standards of the curricula and competencies.

For more information contact, Ms. Linda Pino, National Coordinator of Albanian Coalition for Child Education, e-mail linda.pino@crca.al