The Future Higher Education in Albania in the Digital Era–Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract

Over the last decade, Albania made genuine attempts to adopt its education system after the European model considering the implementation and integration of ICT as a functional skill of digital literacy to face, among others, the challenges of current globalization. But the Covid-19 crisis evidenced that such a revolutionizing of the education system was applied to ICT incorporation and implementation into a curriculum of merely conventionally-based teaching and learning process. Precisely, the research question addresses the evolution of the higher education in Albania against the backdrop of lessons learned from the pandemic crisis in view of an effective and qualitative education system while making the most of technological and digitalized tools. The study is based on a qualitative analysis offering a theoretical approach of primary and secondary sources and continues with the empirical research conducted in 2023 - a survey questionnaire regarding students’ perceptions of the blended mode of teaching and learning process and also a comparative assessment with the one conducted in 2020 regarding their attitudes of online delivery. Hence, by considering the analysis in two quite differing contexts, the aim is to explore how have students’ outlooks changed regarding the mode of delivery of the teaching and learning process since the pandemic period to date. The study also includes in-field expertise acquired to that aim from the University of Münster (Germany) in the framework of the RESILIENCE Project.