New €2.3 million EU-funded project will help 135,000 children benefit from modern competency-based curricula, as well as new national resource centres for blind and deaf children

On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, at the Institute of Deaf Students in Tirana, EU Ambassador Christiane Hohmann and Minister of Education and Sports, Evis Kushi, launched a two-year, “EU for Inclusive Education” project, to help improve quality and access to primary education in Albania.

The project will introduce modern competence based learning and inclusive education methods via new curricula, training for teachers, and support to psychosocial services in schools.  In addition, the project will assist two schools for deaf and blind children to become national resource centres. 

“Investing in children is investing in our future.  The EU is already rebuilding 60 earthquake-hit schools in Albania, and today I am proud to launch this initiative with the Ministry of Education and Sports to provide 135,000 primary school children in grades 1-5 in Albania with modern, inclusive and competency-based education. This includes training for teachers and national resource centres for deaf or blind children. Our goal is clear:  to give Albanian children the best opportunities for their future.” said EU Ambassador to Albania, Christiane Hohmann.

 “This project will make an important contribution not only in reviewing the curricula, but also in training teachers to become trainers for their colleagues. Another contribution of the project will be the investment on the psychosocial workers cabinets, and the transformation of the special schools into resource centers. We are amending the law for pre-university education and the main reason for doing that is the transformation of the special schools into resource centers. I would like to thank the Delegation and the Ambassador of the EU to Albania for this very important contribution,” said Evis Kushi, Minister of Education and Sports.

Over 135,000 children in Albania are expected to benefit from these actions, including the over 130 students attending the schools for deaf and blind children.

Background information

The EU funded project will be implemented by Open Society Foundation for Albania (OSFA) and the Tampere University of Applied Science (TAMK) and implemented in close cooperation partnership with Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) and Agency of Quality Assurance in Pre-university Education (ASCAP), the Central Finance and Contracting Unit form the Ministry of Finance and Economy, Institute of Blind Students and Institute of Deaf Students.

This initiative comes on top of the EU’s EU4Schools programme, which is rebuilding and rehabilitating over 60 schools in 11 earthquake hit municipalities in Albania.

The planned outputs of the project are:

• A new, international standard elementary school training plan and methodology for 24 education profiles developed and in place;
• The professional development curriculum for in service teachers updated according to best current practices
• 320 teachers trained in the new competency-based and inclusive teaching methods.  They will then further train a total of 15,000 teachers across Albania trained in these new competency based curriculum and inclusive teaching methods
• 320 Psycho-Social cabinet services established in primary schools across Albania
• Two national resource centres (for Deaf and Blind children respectively) set up in Tirana

Project activities started in February 2022 and will continue until December 2024. 

#Inclusive Albania

The “EU for Inclusive Education” project is part of the larger “EU for Social Inclusion” programme, which is an EU funded, 5-year, 70 Million EUR initiative to support the Albanian Government to expand social protection, education, and employment services to groups at risk of poverty and social exclusion – including at risk youth, men and women, people with disabilities and minorities.  The programme is active in 19 municipalities around Albania.

Please click here to download the announcement in pdf. For more information, please contact: info@eu4inclusiveteaching.al