Financing Efficiency and Equity in Albanian Education

This report compiles a rich set of previously unavailable data to define where the education sector in Albania has evolved, what key challenges remain, and the priority areas for action by the Albanian government. The report finds that four broad tasks must be tackled to improve education. The country must: 1) increase enrollment rates with the goal of achieving truly universal education in primary and lower secondary schools, and reversing the actual trend of decreasing secondary enrollment; 2) improve the quality of education, which requires developing human resource policies--such as teacher development programs and improved salaries--that will attract good teachers and give them incentives to perform well in classrooms; and providing an adequate physical school environment, which means, among other things, renovating and adequately maintaining school buildings; 3) increase public spending on education, which requires developing clear priorities and reducing relative spending on tertiary education; providing constant and reliable funding to support the identified policy priorities; and increasing spending on non-wage expenditures and investments; and 4) make better use of teachers and schoolsby decentralizing decisionmaking and responsibilities that are more reasonably delegated to the local level.