The Battles for Education in Albania

It was March of 1887 when the first Albanian School opened in Korcë by Koto Hoxhi. At the time, authorized instruction on Albanian soil was the sole responsibility of secular organizations with only Latin, Greek or Turkish instruction and teachings of the Albanian language was strictly banned. Prior to opening the school, Koto Hoxhi had been teaching in a Greek Language school. Hoxhi started to teach the students the written Albanian language which resulted in his arrest and public beating from the Ottoman and Greeks who opposed this action.

Believing that Albanians should know their own written language, Koto Hoxhi pushed for the opening of the school in Korcë. With over 100 signatures from the heads of families who committed to send their children to the Albanian school, Koto Hoxhi began a national revolution for education. With a donated house and the procurement of school benches and chalkboards 30-40 boys began learning to read and write Albanian. And a few months later the first school in Pogradec, a nearby town in the same county, was also opened.

In a daring move that rippled throughout the entire Balkans in 1891 October, Gjerasim D. Qiriazi, opened the first GIRLS school near the boys school. It even had a dormitory so girls from other villages would have access to the instruction. It was a revolutionary time in Albanian history. Sadly, in 1894 January, Gjerasim died. His sisters, Sevasti and Parashqevi, and brother, Gjergi, took over the school management. Sevasti QirIiazi, was a graduate of a University in Istanbul.

But the blossoming of the Albanian education was an explosive battlefield. Much of these timelines are focused on the Korce School.

1902 (June) First Albanian School was forcibly closed by the Ottomans with the arrest of the principal and others. The building was converted into a prison.

1908 (November) School reopened with a patriot administrator and support from Protestant missionaries Phineas and Violet Bond Kennedy.

1909 the Turkish government closed all Albanian schools and gave a firm order to burn all Albanian books, documents, and literature. However, in December 1909, The Normal School opened with 143 students who began learning how to become teachers.

1910 (February) “The Rally of Albanian Letters”: Prior to this year, the Albanian language had been written in several different alphabets across the country depending upon the occupying states who had claims to each Albanian territory. With power and dominance at the center of the argument, groups disputed a Latin or non-Latin alphabetic system. Eventually, the Latin-based Albanian language was created with the 36-letters we see today. Because of the different influences of foreign occupation in the past, the nuances of the language, Shqip, is hard to learn today.

1911 The Albania school reopens for one academic year and closed in June.

1912 (September) The Albania school reopens.

1912 (October 18) The Balkan War began, and all Albanian shops and books were burned. Albanian patriots were killed or imprisoned.

1912 (November 28) Albanians declared Independence from the Ottomans

1912 (December) The Albania school closes again, and the building is again converted into prisons and offices but for the police of the Greek forces this time.

1917 (September) The Albania school reopens

1920 Urani Rumbo opened a primary school for girls in the building. She held training courses in tailoring, embroidery, agriculture, music, gardening and theater so that girls could be involved in the community and public life.

1931 (January) the school building was almost destroyed by an earthquake

1944 Enver Hoxha became prime minister of Albania. He had worked as a contract teacher in the Gymnasium of Tirana (a school) and he taught French and morals in the Korça Liceum from 1937 to 1939.

1970’s Hoxha wanted to be portrayed as a genius and inserted himself into all facets of Albanian life from culture to economics to military matters. Each schoolbook required one or more quotations from him on the subjects being studied.

1978 15.1 times as many females attended eight-year schools as had done so in 1938 and 175.7 times as many females attended secondary schools. By 1978, 101.9 times as many women attended higher schools as in 1957.

Despite all of the turmoil in the Albanian education system, we must pay respect to those who pushed onward and continued to educate the young. Strength and knowledge breeds strength and knowledge. Many of the first students in the Albanian schools went on to become important figures including: a teacher at the Albanian school, a warrior and patriot, an artist, pioneers of the emancipation of Albanian women, scholar and member of the Academy of Sciences, publishers of Koho national newspaper, founder of the first Albanian in America society, railway engineer, lawyer and activist, Minister of Education, and president of ACEN (Assembly of Captive European Nations- an anti-communist organization supported by the USA).

The Albanians are not the only people to have fought hard for educational rights. But as we learned about their struggle and the number of times which books and documents had to be kept hidden underneath floorboards and within secret hidy-holes, we can understand their pride in learning. We met a family in Vlore who had tremendous pride that their two teenage girls were university bound. In the past, some Albanian patriots risked, and lost, their lives to distribute texts in their native language. Today, we’ve observed book vendors with tables on the sidewalk. They are proudly distributing books to the public. The only way to move society forward is to continue to educate our children. This education must be done in cooperation by parents, schools, and the community at large. Please teach others every day.

History of Education in Pictures

These photos and much of the information for this story were obtained in the Ethnographic Museum of Gjirokaster, The Museum of Pogradec-Institute I Edukimit, and The National Museum of Education in Korce.