The promotion of vocational education and training, as the best choice for young people and as the safest and fastest way for their integration into the labor market, continues to remain one of the government’s priorities, materialized in the continued improvement of standards in the vocational schools countrywide.

The Director for Employment and Vocational Training Policies, Albin Gega, in an interview with ATA, said that the strategy for the promotion of vocational education aims to supply the labor market with students graduated from vocational schools who are qualified in the respective schools.

“The pressing task facing us today is the increase of students in vocational education. Increasing the numbers in vocational education means increasing the number in the labor market which effectively leads to the growth of the economy, because there is a direct correlation between the demands of the labor market and the growth of these enterprises. It means that when you hire qualified labor force, the business grows, the income increase, it is a chain that sets this huge mechanism in train,” he says.
Gega emphasizes that the Strategy will be implemented in 2 phases. The first phase is the transition of high school students to vocational education. Work is underway involving the ZAZ directorates and vocational schools, parents and students to ensure the transition of students to vocational education.

In the second phase, the focus will be on the promotion of vocational education at regional and national fairs. The Ministry of Education and Sports has launched the “Choose a trade” campaign, which aims to introduce schoolers to vocational education at the age of 9, on a national level.

“The concept of vocational education may be viewed among students and parents as a secondary choice, instead it should be seen as a primary choice, as today the economy is in dire need of trained workforce. Businesses are looking for increased workforce”, says Gega.
According to him, today about 60% of students in vocational education are employed in the second or third year of school. Two sectors, tourism and ICT, have high demands for skilled labor.

“These students receive very decent salaries. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is in the lead. Based on the traceability that we as the ministry have done, we have information that the level of employment goes up to 70% for certain branches such as tourism and IT. Salaries in this sector exceed the average salary, which is 900 euros. Such sectors are in desperate need of professionals and professionally trained students”, Gega pointed out for ATA.

One of the main challenges is to make the Albanian VET system more attractive, as traditionally the VET system has been considered a secondary route to higher education for those with low grade point average (GPA) coming from compulsory education.

“A student who does not have an inclination towards sciences, is not only more likely to fail university exams but will also be an unemployable category. Everyone has a talent and being in vocational education, they can become skilled at certain professions. They can even start their own business as the practice has shown. The models of the developed countries of the world have shown us that vocational schools produce not only professionals, but also businessmen of the future. For this reason, vocational education takes precedence over high school. Therefore, the immediate task remains to increase the numbers. We are confident that we must do this, we must do it at any cost because it is a national priority,” he says.
Most training programs follow the 2+1+1 structure which consists of a two-year basic professional training, one year of specialization and one year of consolidation phase.
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