"Fewer students in schools!", DP's denunciation: Education with the lowest public funding in the region!

The head of the Department of Education in DP, Lili Sula, said that 47% of school-age children live in food poverty, ranking our country last in Europe.

While he emphasized that education in Albania has the lowest public funding in the region.

Full statement:

The first day of school is a marked day for the whole society, but in a special way; for families; for our students and teachers.

The Democratic Party expresses its heartiest congratulations to the students of pre-university education and, in particular, to the students who are sitting in the school benches for the first time.

The Democratic Party expresses the deepest thanks and gratitude to teachers and parents, for everything they do for the realization of their mission in the education and education of children, our youth.

The new school year 2024-2025 finds our society, family and school communities in the deepest crisis our education system has ever experienced – a crisis that has captured all the resources of the education system and is manifested in:

- financial resource impossibility;

- abandonment of human resources;

- complete politicization of the direction and administration of the educational service;

- the impossibility of school infrastructures;

- disposal of curricula and inventories of necessary teaching tools and equipment.

This new school year comes in a shocking situation regarding the drop in the number of students in schools. A further decrease in the number of students enrolled in school is reported in all the Districts and Municipalities of the country. This year we will have:

– fewer children in Kindergarten;

– fewer students in Basic Education;

– fewer students in Secondary Education!

– fewer students in Vocational Education!

The school year that starts today finds Albanian parents and families the poorest and most unable to educate their children.

More than 20% of school-aged children are neither at school nor at work!

Statistics show that 47% of school-aged children live in food poverty, ranking us last in Europe.

The school year that begins today, finds the quality of the school results of students in ruins. The decline in school results and the catastrophic ranking of our students in the PISA 2022 Test, in the subjects of Mathematics, Reading, Science and Creative Thinking, prove the devastating reality of the quality of the educational service and the failure of this government in education!

This school year finds our pre-university education with the lowest public funding in the region!

The school year that starts today, finds our Teachers with the lowest salary in Europe!

The so-called salary increase is negligible compared to the cost of living and the daily increase in prices. The government's propaganda in this regard shows the lack of respect for educational staff and irresponsibility for the importance of education in the development of the country.

The school year that begins today finds the teaching profession completely destroyed! The low economic and social status of the teacher and the failed and clientelistic programs of their professional training and development have made the teaching profession impossible to practice and completely rejected by our young people to choose it as a profession!

Our school institutions all over the country face a shortage of qualified teachers for subjects such as: Mathematics, Physics, Biology, Chemistry, ICT, etc.

This school year also coincides with the election year. It finds our Teachers under aggression and pressure for the workplace. Centralization of teacher employment procedures; undoing the principle of equality and merit in employment; the politicization of school management has severely affected the environment and the culture of cooperation in the teaching staff!

Due to massive corruption, at the central and local level, today the school year begins without suitable facilities; without didactic material base, without teaching tools and equipment, without technology logistics in teaching; without laboratories and cabinets. In many schools of the country, the minimum necessary conditions for the learning process are completely missing.

This school year finds educational institutions politicized like never before. The educational institutions of the central and local level have turned today into extensions of the political structures of the Renaissance Party. These institutions, under the aggression of Rilindash leaders, are moving away more and more from responsibility and public interest and are being put in the function of the interests of Rilindash and its goals against the patron Nazis.

The new school year finds school security in an alarming state! Students and parents are more insecure and vulnerable to violence, bullying and even more exposed to narcotics. Last year showed the black record when we saw how school principals are part of criminal groups and drug market inside the school.

Dear teachers and parents,

The Democratic Party, convinced that the education and education of our children is the only way for the well-being, prosperity and development of our families and our country, invites all teachers and parents to join the PD's commitment to stop the destruction of education and putting it at the service of the country's development.

All together, with courage and determination, let's make 2024 the last year of the Rama government and its henchmen and turn education into the greatest opportunity for the growth and development of our children; of our homeland.