Albania

Currently there are 13 public higher education institutions in Albania and 17 licensed private Universities. The country’s universities and other tertiary education institutions with their respective number of graduates are listed in the table below:

 Table 16: Higher Education Institutions and Data on Graduating Students per HEI (2007-2009)

Higher education institutions operate on the basis of the 1999 Law on Higher Education, which has been revised in 2007. The public universities have been in existence longer and are mostly financed by the state budget, in addition to the funds acquired through registration and other fees that they collect from students. Private universities are new, established only after 2000, and are self-financed by charging students tuition established by the institution itself, or they are funded by donations.

Among the higher education staff, Masters degree holders are the largest group, followed by either PhDs or PhD-candidate members. Considering the qualified staff within universities, it can, thus, be concluded that there are disadvantages other than academic staff qualifications that stands in the way of real possibilities to perform research. What is generally observed, especially when comparing public and private higher education institutions, is the fact that opportunities for research, both in terms of funding and in terms of infrastructure, are more numerous within private universities than within the public ones.[1] There is an ongoing process to create a ranking of public and private universities, which should provide a better understanding of the performance of each university with regards to teaching and research.

According to UNESCO statistics, in 2008 higher education institutions accounted for 47.9% of the R&D carried out in Albania (based on partial data). The same source indicates that 42% of researchers were employed in the higher education sector in terms of Full-time Equivalents (FTE), whereas in terms of headcount (HC), the share rises to 78% of the number of researchers were employed in higher education institutions. A comparison of the latter with the former statistic suggests that many of the researchers in higher education are working on a part-time basis.