Migjen Qeraxhi: Academic Freedom and Criticism as Essence are lost
Interviewed by: Lorik Idrizi
“The professor is not free even within the university to conduct his academic life, curricula, and such elements, nor is he free to be critical in society, to oppose a governmental decision or to make his own proposal. It is considered to be at the level of 1992 when the academician formed during the dictatorship neither knew what freedom and criticism were.”
In an exclusive interview, Migjen Qeraxhi (Executive Director of “Citizen Stand”) talks about the PISA test results, the causes preventing quality education in Albania and the Western Balkans, and the link between education and the shift in societal models with universal values.
What are the main defects, in your opinion, that prevent a quality education system?
Migjen Qeraxhi: In our country, the issues of transitions, adapting educational systems to market needs, and the challenges that our society faces remain unaddressed. According to international indices, not the reports we produce as “Qëndresa,” if we combine it with the PISA test where we are the country that had lost the most points from all countries on the table and were at the bottom of the table in terms of results, it shows that we have one of the most problematic systems when it comes to the region and Europe. When we go beyond pre-university and look at the university level, our country’s universities do not even make it to prestigious rankings like the QS World Ranking. Only one university participated in this ranking and is ranked 677th out of 688 in total, which means it is in the last 10 places in Europe, indicating that our country does not perform well in the university system. If we look at the situation among the teachers, not the students, according to an international index like V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy), it shows that academic freedom and the academician as a societal critic have decreased. The professor is not free within the university to conduct his academic life, curricula, and similar elements, nor is he free to be critical in society, to oppose a governmental decision, or to make his proposal. It’s considered to be at the level of 1992 when the academician from ’92 was formed during the dictatorship and did not know what freedom and criticism were. In this context, if we look at the situation of teachers, based on the PISA results, it shows that Albania, compared to world countries, had teachers who spent the most time with students. The willingness and desire of teachers to spend time with students were much greater than in Europe, while the efficiency of students was lower.; Is the school a good place for the student? It was the highest in Europe. We had the student who loved school, we had the teacher who spent time with the student, but the student was the weakest in the region. This means we have an intellectual inability to shape the student; we have a population with a desire for education, we have teachers with the desire to educate the population, but there is an intellectual inability to achieve the necessary results. In both pre-university and university systems, we have quality issues in knowledge transfer based solely on international indices. If we consider the indices, local reports as we produce: the financial management of universities is still a problematic element, but to sum up your question, I think the main challenge is financing. We are from the countries where the problems are significant, and it cannot be imagined that this will be resolved without financing, without putting money where the problem is. Then we need to have an open approach towards internationalization or a more open approach to the best international educational institutions, which we are closed to. The recruitment of our country’s universities is problematic, and often we see that a PhD student from Oxford can be defeated by a CV without scientific output from another individual who gets the job position. In this sense, without having staff or having problematic c recruitment of teaching bodies and a lack of funding, I think it is impossible to shift the problem we are in.
How can we move from political reforms to reforms based on expertise?
This should come with a broader political consensus in the country. Education should not be a matter of political campaigns. I believe that for the national interest, our societies and political parties should come together at the table to design or address the issues of the next 30 years in education, and this should not change depending on the political parties that come to power. We have seen that in this political context we live in, prime ministers and ministers set reforms, and then the reforms are quickly implemented just to achieve quick results. But we know that in educational matters, results are not so frequent. A policy taken today cannot produce effects within a government mandate and then produce votes. So, in this sense, political orientations not set in a broader political consensus never bring results. What should happen is: we have always proposed a parliamentary commission for academic vetting, and this cannot be realized without political consensus. So, as long as our political leaders think that education can be an additional element in electoral promises and in the electoral battle, I think it will be harmful, and only a consensus format can bring positivity in this situation.
You mentioned it earlier, but to specify, why can’t we get out of this vicious circle of recurring defects?
Migjen Qeraxhi: This is complex, and it is very much related to the legal situation of the university. We have an autonomous university, and this has created “fiefdoms” in the management of universities. Today, universities are not managed as public goods but as personal goods of individuals who have taken over the university. I think the main element that can get us out, but why we cannot achieve it, is the lack of democracy and space to introduce the installation of democracy within institutions. We have the race for rector, and we have seen that in these 30 years, the same individuals rotate in academic life. They become rector, dean, rector, dean. The inability to circulate elites within educational institutions certainly keeps the situation as it is. Then we have corruption. These institutions are not oriented towards the market and quality education but are oriented towards the quick profit of those who run them. We have had a 73% perception of corruption within the university – the exchange of money for grades. So, the lack of democracy, the lack of transparency, the presence of corruption, the capture by nepotism; some universities are governed by 3-4 families – husband, wife, aunt, son-in-law, son, who are positioned within the university. In this sense, all these elements prevent us from having an objective hope that the situation will change. This changes only with pressure from the society that is the consumer of these knowledge institutions or from the professors. In truth, with the two indices I mentioned of academic freedom and the academician as a critic, we understand that it is impossible for the academician to change the reality within the university because he is part of the structure and has now become part of the problem. The only way is greater engagement from society, parents, students, or organizations that have interests, or international institutions that generally exert pressure on our governing system where education is also included. That is why we have the reports of the European Commission, where every year it is shown that more attention should be focused on scientific research, while in the state budget, we do not allocate even 0.1% of the 1% that should be according to recommendations. And the university itself in scientific research from the money collected from students spends only 0.5%. From 1 million euros spent on building guards, 10,000 euros are spent on scientific research, which is a dramatic disproportion between what the university should be and what it is.
You mentioned earlier the PISA tests. Do you think that not only in Albania but throughout the region, after several very poor results in the last 3 or 4 times, this warning is not understood, this diagnosis is not understood? Where is the problem that the tests show us how weak we are, and we still cannot recover?
Migjen Qeraxhi: The lack of seriousness in addressing the issue of the PISA test is one of the main ones. What we notice is that even the actors of society are almost uninformed about the importance of PISA. As an organization, we have found it extremely difficult to bring the communication about PISA results into the public agenda because even the journalist community found it impossible to understand what this report was. Mainly in the first news where this report was published, the only public communications in the media on some media portals in the country were the comments of some journalists who had commented on PISA from Kosovo or North Macedonia, because the journalists within the country were almost uninformed about the mechanisms, and this makes it even more difficult for society to read it and for society and the media to exert pressure for the reading to be correct by policymakers and the ministry. What happened is that immediately after the results, the ministry blamed the teachers. So, they declared the teachers guilty, who should be trained with special or different courses. This is wrong because we think that the PISA test is an extraordinary test that essentially shows the political decisions of recent years that you have made with education and a kind of predictor of the future of what will happen to you if you have this result and who is the contingent you are preparing for the labor market for the next 10 years. This has not been read in any case like this; it has been read as a phenomenon to which a populist response should be given by politics but not a real one to improve this system. We can see it with optimism if in the next test we will have a changed position from where we are now.
Do you think that the poor quality of education affects the creation of a wrong social model that is often related to corruption?
We absolutely see it this way, and almost the main reason for the investment of our organization and our activists in education issues is that we believe that all the country’s challenges are addressed if we improve education. But what is the main challenge of our country? It is corruption. We are one of the most corrupt countries according to Transparency International. We think that individuals in this society do not start to be corrupted and do not learn how to be corrupted when they become doctors, administrators, police officers, educators. But we believe that with this spread of corruption in the university, the individual learns how to corrupt and be corrupted within the university. So, if we have 73% of students who admit the presence of corruption within their university and if they are not direct consumers of corruption, they learn and receive signals and incentives that in this society, their colleague who corrupted got a diploma. And after getting the diploma, they got the job, and after getting the job, they became rich. So, in this sense, we think that the first link where not only should they be uninfected by corruption, which is the university, but we think we have passed the first link, which is education, where we should make professionals, but in fact, we equip them with the ability to corrupt and be corrupted. So, the role of the academy in building a society with integrity is exceptional. But if we say that in our country, the Minister of Education is accused of plagiarism and does not respond. If we say that the rector is accused of plagiarism and not only does he not comment, but no institution within the university is set up to review it. Then we say that nepotism is the governing principle within the university. Then we say transparency. We have won a court case for the transparency issue of the country’s largest university because it did not want to be transparent. So, all these things give us reasonable doubts to understand that in these institutions, not only professionals are prepared. But individuals are also prepared who have learned well how to corrupt and be corrupted. And this is the drama of our country. This is a reason why in this society, people are leaving more and more. Our country has had extraordinary problems. We have not been a rich country; we have been a poor country with very large social crises. And the level of departure of Albanians has not been like this. And we think it is also due to the lack of educational institutions. Albanians are leaving even though they do not have an educational institution to send their children to. Or the children of this country or students who start to become aware of knowledge understand that these are not places where you can be well educated and integrated. To avoid being fatalistic, they understand that this is the worst place to prepare, so if there are better institutions in the region or Europe, they will leave.
The interview was realised as part of the ‘MOVE GRANTS’ program supported by the Western Balkans Fund.
