By Ornela Çuçi
My biotechnology students are far better informed, more inquisitive and more critical than we lecturers were at their age—because they have tools at their fingertips to find and verify information that my generation could never have imagined.
Të lidhura
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Sometimes they bring me scientific developments I have not yet read about, analyze them clearly, and during our discussions I occasionally feel as though I am the student.
Being in the classroom with them is the best part of my profession, because thanks to them, I am challenged every day to question myself, my knowledge and my worldview.
That is why I often discuss with colleagues how important it is to teach young people in our classrooms to think independently, to become citizens with minds of their own.
But what a formidable challenge that is when, outside the classroom, they face a reality in which independent thought is often treated as an obstacle rather than a virtue. They need only look at parliament, where authority seeks to subjugate argument and where, instead of thought, all that is required is a voting card raised in approval.
Our prime minister tells us that students cannot string seven words together. Yet in parliament, some of his MPs string together seven, eight or a hundred sentences without expressing a single thought.
On television panels, we have heard men speak for two hours and say nothing. We have heard women demolish the myth that women soften politics and bring grace to public discourse.
Of course, some students are unprepared. That is true of every generation and every profession, in every country. But to take a few of them and turn them into the intellectual portrait of an entire generation is unfair, especially when the prime minister does it. Especially when he is the one who selected the men and women who fill parliament.
While students must prove their worth every day, the functionally ignorant need only a place on the right list, with the party leader’s blessing. And so people who could not pass any serious competitive recruitment process are given the power to decide the future of those who must pass such competitions, graduate, then accept minimum wages and hope to buy a modest apartment somewhere in the industrial areas, where even getting there is an ordeal in itself.
The other problem is that what appears in parliament as political mediocrity becomes an institutional problem in public administration. Because unlike parliament, a job in public administration should not be secured by votes, however you won them, or by the party leader. It should be secured on merit.
In its 2025 report, the European Commission finds that rules for merit-based recruitment and promotion are not applied consistently across Albania’s public administration. Meanwhile, OECD/SIGMA’s 2024 assessment gives the transparency, professionalism and effectiveness of public service recruitment a score of 62 out of 100.
So the problem these reports highlight is not students’ abilities, but how the state selects and evaluates people.
And it is not just international reports that identify problems in public administration. Mr. Rama himself acknowledges them, after 11 years as mayor and almost 13 years as prime minister.
A few weeks ago, while presenting an initiative called the “Merit Ladder,” he discussed the results of an internal survey of public administration employees. He acknowledged that the overwhelming majority of those surveyed felt that whether or not they worked made no appreciable difference to how they were evaluated or advanced in their careers. He also admitted that the way vacancies were advertised and candidates informed was neither transparent nor conducive to equal opportunities.
So, after almost thirteen years at the head of the government, the prime minister finally discovered the reality facing young people in the country he governs.
Another troubling indicator comes from a UNDP analysis based on INSTAT data for 2023. Around 106,000 young people aged 15–29, nearly a quarter of the total, were not in employment, education or training.
This figure cannot be explained solely by the lack of meritocracy, but it shows just how much human potential is being left out of the country’s development.
This is precisely where one of Albanian politics’ greatest failures lies. We have a generation of young people whom we ask to study, gain qualifications and compete, while nepotism and clientelism continue to undermine confidence that jobs and careers are earned on merit.
In such a system, a surname, a family connection or proximity to those in power counts for more than a degree and ability. And this is not merely an injustice to the student who is passed over, but an injustice to society as a whole, because in the institutions meant to serve us all, the most capable person is displaced by someone willing to be used by those in power, at the cost of their own dignity.
Then we complain about the brain drain. Young people are not leaving just for better pay. They are leaving a country where you have to know someone before anyone will recognize your abilities.
I am not claiming that every student is outstanding. Nor am I claiming that our universities have no problems, starting with us lecturers ourselves, who are paid as much as a waiter.
But after more than a decade in government, it is disingenuous to blame the younger generation for the weaknesses of an educational and institutional system for which you bear direct responsibility.
And if some students have done wrong, let them be held accountable for their actions. But their opposition to the government must not be confused with ignorance, nor their defiance with a lack of intelligence.
I want my students to challenge me, to know more than I do and one day to have no need of me to defend an idea. Above all, though, I want them to be able to build a life in their own country without needing connections to a politician.
In 2013, Edi Rama said that Albanian students were not asking for handouts, but for recognition of merit. Back then, he seemed to understand very well what young people wanted from the state.
Thirteen years later, students are still asking for the same thing. Meanwhile, the prime minister, who only a few months ago acknowledged the problems with meritocracy in his own administration, has chosen to focus on their ability to string seven words together.
The illiterates are in parliament, not classrooms. There: seven words. Coherent and comprehensible.
I believe the prime minister knows this very well. Because he selected them himself.
