“'After School' piloted in 47 schools”/ Kumbaro: A working group will be established to review the law on higher education

2026-05-29 13:19:00, Aktualitet CNA

“'After School' piloted in 47 schools”/ Kumbaro: A working

Minister of Education, Mirela Kumbaro, also spoke at the media conference about the "After School" program, which has begun piloting in 47 schools, 45 in Tirana and 2 in Kamëz.

She stated that the program has been very well received by parents and schools, while announcing that the Ministry is working to build its legal and infrastructural basis.

"This phase came after, for the first time, with the change we made to the law on pre-university education, we included the notion of 'After School', providing a good legal basis to move this program forward. Also, with the DCM we prepared, we doubled the hourly pay of every teacher who engages in this program, offering a more dignified reward. It will not be done today for tomorrow, but we are building step by step the foundations on which this program will be solidly established. I know that it has been very well received by parents, as well as by schools, but I have received many questions about school food that I want to answer. Before we start the physical infrastructure, we are carefully building the entire legal infrastructure and this has been the work that the Ministry of Education team has been doing intensively in the last 6-7 months. We have used this period of the end of the school year to pilot the after school program, which we are studying in detail day after day. And I want to share some data and very interesting figures: In 'After School' for grades 1-5, the program "We do homework" and the "Art and Craft" clubs are included, which are 5 of them: Music Club; Theater Club; Visual Art Club; Dance Club; Craft Club. In Tirana, in 45 schools where the program is being piloted, we have 308 engaged teachers and about 4,500 students. In Kamëz, in 2 schools, we have 17 involved teachers and 240 students. All this with expertise and support from our partners UNICEF, Save the Children ", said Kumbaro.

Among other things, the minister focused on higher education, where she mentioned the work to review the higher education law, revealing that a working group is being established with experts from the Ministry of Education, representatives of higher education leaders from the public and non-public sectors, and lawyers and professors from the Faculty of Law with the aim of better reflecting towards internationalization and profiling.

"We are no longer in need of building a completely new law, because with all the opinions they have sent in writing, universities confirm that the law has many good things and has regulated a lot in academic life, both in terms of education and scientific research. The Pact for the University and all that great communication that took place at all levels from students to leaders was also another very important step in understanding what we have done well and what still needs to be regulated."

Today we are facing another important objective to build the spirit of the future, because the reality of 2015 is not today's reality and we live in a dimension where technology poses other challenges, where globalization poses other challenges, but especially the point where Albania is today at the moment when we are preparing for the European market poses new challenges. In the Ministry, we have thought of establishing a working group as a form of discussion with several levels. There is a group that is with the heads of the administration of the Ministry of Education. The most important group that for me is at the head of the entire process is the group established with representatives of higher education leaders from the public and non-public sectors: rectors, deans, professors, experts", said Kumbaro. /CNA