How Fair is Education Policy in Albania?

Abstract

Democracy, although a highly debated concept, preserves its identity in the values upon which it is founded. These values give universality to democracy, are normative and define democracy. Fairness is considered as one of the standard values of democracy. It is seen as justice, social justice and as equality. Fairness is highly discussed from the prospect of distributive justice. As injustice comes from unfair distribution of resources, the criteria over which this distribution is done is important. Three are the main principles based on which fair distribution is conducted: equality; everyone receives the same resource; equity, resource is distributed based on merit, work, talent; need, resource is distributed based on what individuals need. The development of political culture is the bridge that links fairness with citizens. Education stands as an important tool that influences political culture. At the same time, it is one of the spheres where to notice issues of fairness. In education, a top-down analysis of fairness necessitates the examination of education policy. The driving research question has been to examine how education policy in Albania reflects issues of fairness. It brings results from the analysis of formal documents representing education policy. Content analysis has been used as a method aiming to filter these documents for issues related to fairness.