The speech of Comrade Ramiz Alia Comrades, I too agree with the report presented to us by the Minister of Education, Comrade Skënder Gjinushi, with the problems it raises and the proposals it makes concerning various aspects of the development of popular education and our school system. I also agree with the discussions held in this session and. On behalf of the Central Committee of the Party, I wish to thank in particular the invited cadres and specialists who, with their valuable views and suggestions, contributed to clarifying the problems addressed. As in all other fields, our Party and people have also brought about great and historic transformations in education. During these 45 years, an unparalleled revolution has taken place in the field of education. This is a clear indication of the vitality of our socialist order, which opened horizons and creates opportunities for the masses to acquire knowledge, education and culture. Throughout the 45-year post-Liberation period, we have had to accomplish three fundamental tasks in education, which remain relevant today as well. First, to create a school system with all the necessary stages, from preschool education through postgraduate education. Second, to build a new school in terms of its content and methods of teaching and education, a school that seeks to provide a comprehensive and harmonious education, with a socialist and national spirit. Third, to give the school a truly contemporary character in scientific and pedagogical terms as well. Our educational, school and pedagogical developments have been rich and complex. One feature of this complexity has been that these three major lines have neither proceeded nor are proceeding one after another, or separately from one another. They have alternated, with one or another taking precedence at different times. This will also happen in the future. Our popular education system and socialist school have played the role of a powerful weapon in the struggle for the country’s overall progress, especially its cultural progress and the spiritual formation of generations. For a time, we gave priority to vocational secondary education, while agricultural secondary education predominated in the countryside. However, it turns out that most of our vocational schools, especially the agricultural ones, are weak. Life demands that some corrections be made. It seems to me that vocational education, with the proposed structure, is more rational and more progressive. Of particular importance is the establishment of technical secondary schools to prepare primarily a step forward not only educationally and pedagogically, but also in cultural and social terms generally. Another problem that is difficult to resolve fully for now is university admissions. For the time being, and for some time to come, we will not be able to meet all the demands for admission to higher education. Certainly, the education authorities must seek and find various opportunities and ways to increase the number of places, in keeping with our material and technical capabilities. Another obstacle concerns quality. At present, the graduates produced by secondary schools do not have the necessary cultural background to meet the requirements of higher education, which should not be handing out diplomas, but preparing capable and cultured specialists. Preserving the quality of higher education, indeed continually raising its level, is of decisive importance for the country’s future. We have established eight-year education, but the eight-year school must be strengthened in every respect, especially in terms of quality. It must be relieved of many unnecessary and excessive things, while the effectiveness and productivity of its work must also be increased. We have many problems to resolve regarding the content and methods of teaching and education as well. The principle of linking learning with productive work and with physical and military education has been applied in schools. In practice, however, certain difficulties have emerged. The educational, youth and public communities see that implementing this idea also involves unnecessary repetition and wasted time. There is therefore no reason why we should not make the necessary and reasonable adjustments here too, without abandoning the aim of resolving these problems more fundamentally in the future. In raising such issues, I wanted to emphasize that what we are undertaking is a new educational reform in the full sense of the word. The very establishment of unified, compulsory general education is a major reforming act for an educational system. This is all the more true when secondary education of every type is also conceived at a new, higher level. The changes we are making in education are connected with the new problems of our time that the Party has set out concerning the further revolutionization and democratization of the country’s life. Within this framework, a major problem is how to enliven and make more vibrant, more combative and creative, the education of the younger generation. Another major problem is how to ensure that socialist democracy permeates school life broadly and concretely. Our main aim remains the strengthening of the comprehensive communist education of the younger generation. We set this task long ago and have also achieved significant results. Our socialist school has played and continues to play its part in the sound condition of our youth. But there are still many gaps and shortcomings in the formation of our youth. The development of free, democratic, sound and revolutionary thinking must be understood and closely linked with the deepening of socialist democracy in the life of the entire country and of the school itself. Our children and young people must learn to communicate freely and naturally, without fear and with courage. The school, as a traditionally humane and democratic institution, and all the more so our socialist school, must teach and educate them to be free and vibrant, active and revolutionary subjects. (Continued on page 2) Yesterday, in the hall of the People’s Assembly of the RPSSH, under the chairmanship of the First Secretary of the Party’s Central Committee, Comrade Ramiz Alia, the 11th Plenum of the Party’s Central Committee began its work with the following agenda: 1. Report on perfecting the education system and further strengthening the quality of the school. 2. Information on the implementation of the decisions of the 10th Plenum of the CC of the PPSH. 3. Report on further improving the organization and raising the standard of artisan and trade services. 4. Miscellaneous. For the first item on the agenda, in addition to members and candidate members of the Party’s CC, the meeting was also attended by invited guests: teachers and education specialists, cultural, scientific and economic specialists, leading Party and government cadres from the districts and the center, leaders of mass organizations, etc. Many speakers took the floor concerning the report prepared by the Education Commission established under the Political Bureau of the Party’s CC, of the school,” which was delivered by Education Minister Skënder Gjinushi, and, which was delivered by Education Minister Skënder Gjinushi. At the close of the discussion on the problems of perfecting the education system, Comrade Ramiz Alia also spoke. The Plenum continues its work today to discuss the other items on the agenda.

— From the report by Education Minister Skënder Gjinushi — Comrades, We are all witnesses to the rapid progress of popular education and our socialist school. The Party’s education policy has always been a consistent, revolutionary and democratic policy, responding to the country’s conditions and to the needs of society’s development. The expansion and democratization of education as an uninterrupted process have made it the same for everyone, without social distinctions, equal for girls and boys, free of charge and without fees, with extensive opportunities for instruction in the mother tongue for national minorities, etc. With compulsory eight-year education, the rapid development of secondary and higher education, and their continually rising standards, the right to education—one of the fundamental human rights—has acquired an ever-greater real scope and an ever-higher qualitative content. At the 8th Plenum of the CC of the PPSH on education, held in 1969, 21 years ago, a broad program for the further revolutionization of the school was approved. The Party’s congresses and other documents from this period further enriched that program. Its implementation has brought notable achievements. Qualitative improvements in the school curriculum have been significant. He pointed out that secondary education developed rapidly, particularly after the Party’s 9th Congress, thereby fulfilling and even exceeding the task that had been set. It now includes 74 percent of pupils completing eight-year school, and 66 percent in the countryside. Secondary school has penetrated deeply into the countryside through agricultural education classes and, gradually, general education classes as well. As a result, the educational structure of the population has changed significantly. Our schools have prepared about 80,000 higher-level cadres—one for every 38 adult residents. These figures make it clear that we must not fall into complacency and euphoria; that the leadership of our theses will be verified through revolutionary practice, which will teach us to correct inaccuracies, shortcomings and errors in the system and in the practices we establish, which will certainly change in line with their further efforts. A special Commission attached to the Party’s CC, Comrade Skënder Gjinushi continued, drew up a work program and several fundamental theses, and organized discussion of the main objectives of this reform and the measures to be taken. For several months, a broad public discussion took place around these theses. Teachers and lecturers, pupils and students, specialists and cadres, parents and workers took part. This discussion was another concrete expression of the implementation of the mass line, of our democracy in action. I. Fundamental problems in perfecting the education system In light of educational developments to date and those expected in the future, the need to perfect the education system, its overall structure and the main categories of schools stands out clearly. The most important key point, the fundamental starting point, is to expand the unified core of compulsory general education. If compulsory education, Here, the complexities have consisted in the fact progress, especially the cultural progress and spiritual formation of the younger generations. But the Party and Comrade Enver Hoxha have taught us to look ahead, not to neglect the problems that accumulate, even those that have only just arisen, and to try to anticipate new developments. This attitude is especially important for education and the school, which, while working for today, works even more for the future. From this perspective, as was argued in the report and in the discussions, it seems that the time has come to take the proposed measures so that we can raise the school’s level in accordance with the demands of the times. The spirit of the 9th and 10th Plenums must also permeate the school and education. Many of the problems proposed for resolution are of a very practical nature, not only educational and pedagogical, but also social. Let us take, for example, the rapid development of secondary education. There are aspects of this development that should be viewed critically. highly qualified workers with modern technical specialization, or, as we also call them, middle-level technicians. At present, there may be a greater need for these workers than for engineers. Likewise, the proposal to create a single type of secondary school in the countryside seems valuable to me: a school providing a solid general education with an agricultural orientation, while ensuring comprehensive preparation for work and higher education. There is a cohort in higher schools. Young people must not be deprived of this option. We must make maximum use of the existing opportunities, as well as those that will gradually be created, to increase admissions during the coming year, drawing large cohorts into higher education, both in full-time programs requiring release from work and in the correspondence system. However, it must be borne in mind that this issue is linked to factors that have

Our country can and must be built and developed by us alone, the Albanian people, and by no one else.

(Photo: ATSH)