Roundtable for online child protection/Kumbaro: We have taken measures

2025-12-09 14:35:00, Aktualitet CNA

The Minister of Education, Mirela Kumbaro, participated in the "Protection of Children Online" roundtable organized by the National Authority for Cybersecurity, with the aim of institutional coordination for the protection of children in the online environment.

Kumbaro, in her speech, said that the Ministry of Education has issued an order prohibiting the use of mobile phones during school hours, while ongoing work is being done to ensure that this order continues to be implemented.

"The Ministry of Education this September issued a directive that prohibits bringing cell phones into the classroom in all schools in Albania. As of this September, small boxes have been built in classrooms and teachers and school principals are responsible for ensuring that all students put their cell phones in those boxes in the morning and take them out when they leave."

It has been attempted several times, but this year it has become mandatory, it is being implemented strictly and I am not saying that it has been resolved, but we continue to regularly ask teachers and principals to implement it strictly. On the other hand, the child spends 4-6 hours in school and we are taking another initiative to extend the time he stays in school to balance that time with a larger program that we have called the after-school program by introducing other activities, such as the Art and Craft program", said Minister Kumbaro.

Further, in her discussion, the Minister of Education underlined that the use of technology has been introduced in schools since primary grades and teachers are intensively trained to create a healthy balance between its use, but also creative, educational and socializing activities, while cooperation with parents is key to achieving shared success.

"We have introduced the subject of ICT (information and communication technology), we have introduced SmartLabs, and within the next two years we will equip a thousand schools with SmartLabs, with intelligent laboratories for primary grades to high school students, with all the smart boards and 5,500 laptops with which 5,500 high school teachers will be equipped. It is a major technological investment that is accompanied by the entire curriculum and a very intensive training package from the Pre-university Education Quality Assurance Agency for teachers.

But teachers and schools cannot succeed without parents. And with parents, it doesn't work with orders, nor with coercion, nor with the law. Only with communication. We will not have any battles won if we don't raise awareness among everyone, and this awareness is like water rings. We have introduced ICT in schools, but we are also introducing 'Arts and Crafts', so that children can do as many activities with their hands as possible, but in a more attractive way.

"The Ministry of Education is building all the possibilities to move in parallel with the unconditional and necessary coexistence with technology, which is the present and the future, but as much as possible also by maintaining contacts with several other activities that are educational, but also human," concluded Minister Kumbaro.

On the other hand, the Director General of the National Cyber ??Security Authority, Igli Tafa, stated that institutional coordination is very necessary that will serve a new legal framework in the New Criminal Code against online threats.

"The online world, so necessary and indispensable for all the digital transformations of the country's economy, is also becoming a dangerous environment in certain cases for our children. Today we are witnesses that our children are faced with online bullying, online blackmail, but also with a new technology such as 'Deep Fake'. We very much need to gather, organize and coordinate for what will lead to a new legal framework for all the measures that need to be taken on online threats to children by bringing all actors together," he said.