What should Albanian teachers celebrate on March 7th?

2026-03-07 09:39:00, Opinione Ardi Stefa

Every year, on March 7, social networks are filled with congratulations, symbolic flowers, pathetic speeches and big words about the "sacred mission of the teacher". "Feeling" dedications, words and slogans drawn not from the heart, but from the internet. Words that sound beautiful, but are just words.

Because behind these sentimental dedications, the reality of the Albanian teacher is much harsher.

One day a year the teacher is placed on a pedestal; the other 364 days, in the corner of the system.

They are not even put on a pedestal for a day, because somewhere around noon, the very ones who dedicate them smile at them, flatter them with the flowers they were given, while televisions and portals are filled with denunciations of the gifts that "teachers" receive! And they only take into account the occasional isolated case of incompetent teachers, who cover up their lack of knowledge and professional training with other words and flattery from students and parents.

What should teachers celebrate today?

For salaries that barely support a family?

For the professional dignity that has been completely trampled upon and violated every time politics is remembered for education only in campaigns?

For the lack of respect that often comes from uneducated students and arrogant parents who see school as a parking service where they have parked their child and teacher for eight hours as a bureaucratic obstacle between their child and their diploma?

Should they celebrate the fact that they only have duties and almost no real rights to defend their authority in the classroom? By law they have rights, in practice they have none, they only have duties!

What about grades that have lost their weight? When almost everyone goes to university, often without any real meritocracy filter, what value is left for school assessment? When grades are no longer an instrument of formation and no longer measure knowledge, but only pressure, the work of the teacher also fades.

Should they celebrate mediocre textbooks that are often more products of tenders and literal translations of foreign texts than instruments of knowledge?

Or for the endless hours spent on digital platforms, on forms, tables and reports? Instead of energy going to lesson preparation, books, knowledge and students, a large part of the time is spent on digital bureaucracy, documentation, on systems like SMIP, on drafting risk management reports, on drafting diaries and learning styles that are never implemented and an endless bureaucracy imposed by ministry officials who have never been teachers; all of this weighs on the quality of teaching.

Of course, there are still students who love knowledge. There are still parents who understand the sacrifice of teachers. There are still teachers who continue to do this profession with passion, even when the system does not help them. But the latter are a heroic minority within a bleak and cruel reality.

But is this minority enough to celebrate?

Personally, I do not celebrate March 7, I do not wait and I am convinced that it should not be just a day of congratulations. In fact, it is a day of hypocrisy, a ceremony of collective hypocrisy where Albanian society thanks the teacher one day and continues to ignore and mistreat him the next day.

It should be a day of reflection for Albanian society.

The way a teacher is treated is, ultimately, a reflection of the way a society treats knowledge.

And, if knowledge is not respected, then March 7th is a continuation of collective hypocrisy and not a reason to celebrate.

And, if a society doesn't respect its teachers all year round, what value is there in celebrating them for one day?/ CNA