The New Higher Education Reform and Higher Education Law in the “Social Dimension†Perspective: The Albanian Case

Higher education and research in Albania during these 24 years of democracy seems to be not in the international standards, progress seems to have been somewhat disappointing in the last 14 years of reforms in higher education. Although the number of universities and students enrolled in higher education has grown rapidly, the quality assurance remains an issue. For this reason the government is undertaking a reform that involves higher education which is expected to bring a dramatic change in the structure of the higher education and soon in the outputs. This new approach to higher education brought many debates among the stakeholders of higher education and especially among student’s organizations. In this context this paper focus the analysis in particular of 1. 1) How the social dimension of higher education is perceived in the higher education reform and the new higher education law 2. What are the specific actions undertaken by the government to improve the participation of under-represented groups in higher education. This paper and the study of the higher education reform and law is part of my PhD thesis (which is in progress) which tends to open a discussion on the role that universities , as one of the main stakeholders of higher education, has in the Albanian society.