With a model similar to that applied in Germany, from the new school year, the Dual System will operate in vocational education. According to this system, from the second year, students will spend half of their weekly teaching hours in school environments and the other half in a business environment, where they will also be paid a minimum wage while doing their practical training. For the Prime Minister, this is a model that serves as an investment for the enterprises themselves, to have qualified human resources.
Businesses that will become part of this system are required to hire a mentor to supervise the trainees, and they will benefit from tax reductions. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister announced that the government is considering a special fund for skills training, to which all businesses will contribute. Another requirement for enterprises participating in the Dual System is that their businesses, such as hotels or restaurants, must have dedicated teaching environments.
“1% of the total expenses of large businesses in Albania will go to dual vocational education,” stated Prime Minister Edi Rama while presenting the new reform. During his speech, Prime Minister Rama said that the National Education Fund has been created to serve dual vocational education. The new reform foresees that students of these schools will do their learning near businesses in the country.
Edi Rama: We still have a big problem in the business world, but we have a cultural problem in the public sector. If we look at large enterprises and the investments they make in human resources: the more they invest in them, the more their success rate in market positioning increases. Besides the fact that entrepreneurs complain about not being economically well, they immediately start saying, “we don’t have people, they come and go.”
This requires a cultural address first to understand that just as a plan is made to build the hotel, a plan is made to develop the human resources that will maintain the hotel. Just as the entire volume of investment is made, a plan must be made to invest in people who will know how to manage those expensive materials and harmonize them with the service culture. We are prepared to enter this phase with a year of piloting. We cannot wait for the cultural change to happen when it happens.
From today, large employers, all large businesses of the Republic of Albania should know that 1% of their total expenses will go for this work, or it will be taken for this work, and we will create the National Skills Fund, which will support this entire process without leaving it to the will of businesses, on a system of quotas and contributions that will go to finance the development of human capital, as well as this entire dual vocational education scheme.
The most likely option is that this 1% should be invested in the continuous training of personnel and for participation in this dual education scheme. Expenses made in the framework of paying students who will participate in dual education will be considered tax-deductible expenses. Those who do not enter this process will have to contribute this as an additional contribution to the tax, beyond this 15%, it will be an extra contribution that according to the size of the companies will go up to 0.5-1% of the total annual expenses and will be paid into the National Education Fund.
It will be a public fund, managed together with business representatives, and will be spent only for this work. They will not be revenues as they come from taxes, but will be in this fund and will be spent only for this work. The fund will serve to encourage medium and small companies to get involved in dual vocational education schemes.
The investment that should be made for this fund should create the school environment in the business environment. We will have a dedicated environment. Naturally, this cannot be requested from existing hotels, but existing hotels will have to be included in this scheme. In all new processes related to construction permits, we will include the component for dual education and professional development.
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