Albania
Since the 2000s, Albania has improved access to education and raised learning outcomes. However, educational attainment and performance continue to be strongly influenced by students’ background characteristics. Learning levels remain among the lowest in Europe. This reflects systemic challenges of low funding, unstable governance and limited capacity. Placing student learning at the centre of Albania’s evaluation and assessment processes can help to focus the system onto raising standards for all.
This chapter explores how Albania’s appraisal processes and related teaching standards, career structure and professional learning policies could better develop teachers’ competencies. While Albania has a range of appraisal processes, they are not designed to support teachers’ professional growth. In addition, teachers’ professional development remains underfunded, which contributes to a lack of effective job‑embedded learning opportunities. Albania needs to revise its appraisal processes and teacher career structure and further invest in professional learning to help its existing teacher workforce develop more complex knowledge and skills. Albania also needs to address factors that may dissuade the best candidates from entering the teaching profession, including onerous procedures for certification. Finally, Albania needs to ensure that initial teacher education programmes are equipping future entrants with the student‑centred approaches and other competencies they will need for the classroom.
This chapter looks at how Albania can make better use of school evaluation to improve teaching and learning practices. Albania has central procedures for conducting external school evaluations, but very few have been undertaken in recent years. A recent re-organisation of the country’s school evaluation system aims to increase capacity to conduct evaluations and also provide more support to schools. However, some changes may compromise the quality of evaluations. These include the spreading of responsibility for external school evaluations across multiple bodies. In addition, ongoing systemic challenges in Albania limit schools’ ability to meaningfully respond to external evaluations and their annual self‑evaluations. In particular, schools are underfunded and have minimal to no autonomy to make budgetary decisions. Schools are also hindered by a lack of strong school leadership. Albania is addressing this challenge through the establishment of a new School of Directors to train and certify principals. Albania also needs to consolidate responsibility for external school evaluation and provide greater technical and financial support to schools to act upon external and internal evaluation findings.
Subnational governments play a significant role in ensuring good public governance. The way that they are organised and function has a direct impact on the economic and social well-being of citizens and public trust in government. This report presents the system of multi-level government in the six Western Balkan economies, comparing them both with one another and in the context of broader international trends in multi-level governance. The report covers territorial and institutional organisation, competences of local governments, human resources and accountability, public financial management and vertical and horizontal co-ordination, in each case identifying key characteristics and recent trends.
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Albania has started to establish some of the components integral to system evaluation, including the development of a modern education management information system (EMIS). However, the lack of processes and capacity needed to conduct system evaluation, as well as low government demand for evidence, limits Albania’s ability to use evaluation information for system improvement. This chapter recommends that Albania integrate evaluation more centrally into the new national education strategy and strengthen the institutional capacity needed to support a culture of system evaluation. This chapter also reviews Albania’s national assessment system and EMIS development plans, offering recommendations to ensure these tools support strategic planning and national education goals.
Private investment by Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs)1 is a key generator of economic growth and social change in OECD member country economies. In most countries, over 90% of all enterprises are SMEs. It is now widely accepted that the contribution of SMEs to new jobs, exports, innovation and regional development is vital to national development. How to benefit from and maximise this contribution is a continuous challenge for all countries. This Enterprise Policy Performance Assessment seeks to help address that question for Albania and highlights issues that require attention and priority action.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are essential drivers of sustainable economic growth in the Western Balkans and Turkey, where they make up 99% of all firms, generate 65% value added and account for 75% of employment. Nevertheless, SMEs across the region continue to face obstacles such as difficulties accessing financing, low levels of digital uptake, regulatory barriers and relatively low participation in international trade. The situation has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic: SMEs found themselves fighting for survival amidst reduced demand, lockdowns and travel restrictions, and supply chain disruptions.
This report provides an overview of the implementation of the Small Business Act for Europe during the period 2019-22. It is designed to help policy makers design, implement and monitor policies to support the recovery of SMEs from the pandemic, boost their competitiveness based on OECD and EU good practices, and further enhance the region’s economic growth and resilience.
Robust SME sectors are critical to the prosperity of the six Western Balkan economies and Turkey, accounting for over 70% of those employed in the business sector and generating 65% of value added in these seven economies. Yet their potential remains untapped, as SMEs across the region grapple with numerous challenges that hamper their growth and productivity. They are still under-represented in international trade, and their contributions to value-added remain comparatively low as they have difficulties in moving or expanding into high value-added activities.
This report provides a comprehensive overview of the implementation of the ten principles of the Small Business Act for Europe (SBA) in the seven EU pre-accession economies over the period 2016-18. It monitors progress against similar assessments performed over the past decade and identifies the outstanding challenges affecting SMEs. It also provides targeted recommendations to remove barriers to SME development and unleashing their potential for driving inclusive economic growth.
The SME Policy Index is a benchmarking tool designed for emerging economies to assess SME policy frameworks and monitor progress in policy implementation over time. The Index has been developed by the OECD in partnership with the European Commission (EC), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 2006 for the Western Balkans. The South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning (SEECEL) joined as an additional partner in 2014. The SME Policy Index has since 2006 been applied in four regions and nine assessment rounds overall.
The SME Policy Index: Western Balkans and Turkey 2016 presents the results of the fourth assessment of the Small Business Act for Europe in the Western Balkans and, since 2012, Turkey. The assessment framework is structured around the ten principles of the Small Business Act for Europe (SBA). It provides a wide-range of pro-enterprise measures to guide the design and implementation of SME policies based on good practices promoted by the EU and the OECD.
The Index identifies strengths and weaknesses in policy design, implementation and monitoring. It allows for comparison across countries and measures convergence towards good practices and relevant policy standards. It aims to support governments in setting targets for SME policy development and to identify strategic priorities to further improve the business environment. It also helps to engage governments in policy dialogue and exchange good practices within the region and with OECD and EU members.
Educational work is a key element for both human capital formation and the promotion of peace and democratic values. It has therefore been identified as one of the priorities of the Stability Pact. The OECD was asked to be Co-ordinator for “General Education Policy and System Change” within the Education and Youth Task Force, and to carry out “Thematic Reviews of Education Policy” in the countries of the region. The main outcome of this project is a series of reports which provide both country overviews and a regional overview. These reports offer an analysis of the education system and address issues and barriers to reform and recommendations. The recommendations are designed to be of use for national policy-makers and to assist Stability Pact partner countries and institutions target regional assistance in order to achieve the goal of supporting South Eastern Europe towards European integration. These reports are part of the OECD’s ongoing co-operation with non-member economies around the world.
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of Western Balkan economies but until recently received relatively little attention from policy makers. Governments focused on consolidating macroeconomic stabilisation and the restructuring and privatisation of large companies. The adoption in 2003 of the European Charter for Small Enterprises contributed to a change in policy perspective.
The SME Policy Index 2007 presents the first comprehensive and comparative assessment of progress made in implementing the Charter. The assessment is based on the SME Policy Index, an analytical tool designed by the OECD Investment Compact and the European Commission, and uses collaborative benchmarking to measure progress in the ten dimensions of the Charter:
• Education and training for entrepreneurship
• Cheaper and faster start-up
• Better legislation and regulation
• Availability of skills
• Improving online access for tax filing and company registration
• Getting more out of the single market
• Taxation and financial matters
• Strengthening the technological capacity of small enterprises
• Successful e-business models and top class business support
• Developing stronger, more effective representation of small enterprises
Governments of the region have already started to take action based on the results of the report through the creation in April 2007 of a South East European Investment Committee which aims to develop detailed guidelines on how to implement reforms in priority areas including the SME environment.
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and UNMIK/Kosovo are assessed in this report. A second SME Policy evaluation will be conducted and published in 2009.
competition, tax, trade policy, regulatory reform and human capital.
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.
This dataset includes pension funds statistics with OECD classifications by type of pension plans and by type of pension funds. All types of plans are included (occupational and personal, mandatory and voluntary). The OECD classification considers both funded and book reserved pension plans that are workplace-based (occupational pension plans) or accessed directly in retail markets (personal pension plans). Both mandatory and voluntary arrangements are included. The data includes plans where benefits are paid by a private sector entity (classified as private pension plans by the OECD) as well as those paid by a funded public sector entity. Data are presented in various measures depending on the variable: millions of national currency, millions of USD, thousands or unit.