TIRANA, March 13- In the framework of the 30th birthday of the internet, the British Council has designed a three years education program to launch five Balkan countries. The program titled 21st Century Schools seeks to provide pupils aged 10-15 years old with the skills of critical thinking, problem solving and coding. The aim of this program is to grow a future generation of innovators and entrepreneurs, and built job opportunities for them. The project costs 10 million pounds and is being invested by the British government.
21st Century Schools will mentor and offer valuable sources to uplift the capacities of school headmasters and policymakers. The program seeks to equip all Balkans’ middle schools and 1 million pupils with micro:bit computers which will help kids learn new digital skills and coding in a fun and interactive way. Micro:bit is programmable micro computer, which portable and can be used to design modern tools and objects, like robots and even musical instruments. This tiny computer can help kids think step by step and separate commands in sequences.
The program is also launched in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia. In Albania the program was launched at “Niket Dardani” middle school. As the Albanian society is facing the fruits and challenges of technological innovation, this educative program seeks to prepare its pupils with the mindset and skills needed for the jobs of the future. In our country this program involves 1200 schools, more than 4000 teachers, and around 120 thousand pupils aged 10-15.
This program comes in collaboration with the corresponding educational institutions per country. In the PISA test 2015, the Balkan countries have significantly performed under the mean of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in the subjects of mathematics, science and and reading. The PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) test is a worldwide study by the OECD, and aims to test literacy, the competence of students in three fields: reading, mathematics, science on an indefinite scale. The PISA asks students to apply their knowledge in solving problems set in real-world contexts.
According to OECD’s results, 78 percent of pupils in Kosovo, 70 percent in FYROM, 53 percent in Albania, and 52 percent in Montenegro, lacked basic skills in mathematics when comparing to the OECD’s mean of 30 percent. This result implies a lacking in practical problem-solving skills. And this weak education capacity and its noncompliance to the market needs are the of the main reasons of the high unemployment levels in these countries.
Data from the World Bank issued in 2018 show that the average unemployment rate in the western Balkan countries is 31.5 percent, which is one of the highest in Europe. This problem is causing region emigration which on its behalf is caused by the worsening of economic conditions and lack of proper jobs, especially for the employees with secondary and primary skills.
And in Albania the education sector is one of the least financed one, with only 3 percent of the country’s GDP invested. Thus, the pupils are facing an uncertain future, as there is a gap between the skills they acquire from school and the employers’ demands in the job market. However, as there is a high unemployment rate among youth in the Balkans, the technological and digital sectors have job vacancies. Research conducted shows that the future is IT, with primary work of Data Scientists and Analysts, Software and App Developers, Big Data Specialists, New Tech Specialists, etc..
Thus it is fair that children start learning relevant skills at a younger age with an opportunity to practice them in cross-curriculum projects and programing. Thus the 21st Century Schools seeks to improve the education system in the Balkans by providing equipment, and traineeships for coaches, school leaders and teachers, making possible the convergence of contemporary teaching methods for 1 million pupils, with a main focus in critical thinking, coding and problem-solving.
