TIRANA, Oct 18 /ATA/ Prime Minister Edi Rama on Tuesday held a meeting with the rectors of Public and Non-Public Universities to discuss the process of higher education institution ranking.
In his remarks, Rama said that, “this meeting is held in the follow-up to another meeting, our higher education forum together with rectors of public universities as well as representatives of non-public universities, although I have never agreed with this term, as I think that even privately -funded universities are public universities, but privately funded. However, this term is in place this and we must stick by it.”
“We are here today with all the rectors of public and non-public universities to discuss a very important topic, which concerns on the one hand, the ranking of our universities and on the other hand, a thorough evaluation of all legitimacy criteria at an intermediary phase, after the reform of Higher Education, the beginning of its implementation and as part of deepening this reform, no longer in the legal aspect, but in the aspect of further modernization of our entire university system,” Rama emphasized.
Rama informed that, “even in the discussion with the rectors at the Prague meeting which has been christened the new European Political Community, I have brought up the topic of the University which needs to be addressed by the EU before Albania and the countries of the Western Balkans become members of the EU.
As candidate countries negotiating with the EU for our membership, we have a partial access to the European Higher Education system and the relevant funding. You know this better. While EU universities and countries, with full access to that system, have on the one hand the possibility of immediate creation of synergies between them and on the other hand the possibility of extra funding for the synergy they create, which for us today is out of the question because we are not members of the EU.”
“We have started a process called the internationalization of Universities, and for the sake of truth, I want to thank the rectors because we see very encouraging steps forward. I also want to thank them for the fact that there is a significant impetus in terms of accessing European funds for that part of the system that we can access today as a candidate country and a negotiating country,” said Rama.
“The University of Tirana has increased the number of beneficiaries of European funds from less than 50 beneficiaries to more than 400 beneficiaries. And more than 400 beneficiaries, i.e. lecturers meaning roughly half or a little more than half of the total number of University lecturers. This is something remarkable if we consider the short time in which it happened. Of course, it is the direct impact of the new leadership of Tirana university and the new approach that is taking shape step by step despite its own problems, causing our financial capacity for scientific research to increase significantly,” Rama said.
“I bring this example here in view of what I said a little while ago. The indicator is very clear. We in our university system have much more capacities than it has been possible to read in the eyes of the public opinion, but also in the eyes of the most interested opinion as a result of a very long period of apathy and backwardness in the treatment of human resources . Today this is one of the most important effects of the reform. It is one of the most important effects of this new approach and the push for internationalization”, said Rama.
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