TIRANA, October 5 – University lecturers protested on Wednesday in front of the Polytechnic University in Tirana, where they affirmed that they will gather in another protest on October 17, the date when the new academic year is scheduled to start in Albania.
Professor united in this protest presented their demands and made it clear that they will not withdraw until their fulfillment. Among their main demands is a 17 percent increase of their wages.
On the other hand, Prime Minister Edi Rama announced at an activity held by the Agricultural University of Tirana that there will be an increase of up to 7% of the wages of lecturers.
The protesters opposed the proposal by saying that the offer is unacceptable. They said the prime minister should come down to earth and face reality.
“Waiting for the prime minister to realize the request of our offer, with the crisis assumed by the prime minister, we have reduced our demands. If we don’t have a dignified answer we will be in protests again on the 17th of October. To be clear, the Union has supported the student protests as well,” said the head of the Teachers’ Union, Aleksandër Kovaci.
“It is not growth what you (PM) propose; give up strategic investments and transfer funds to University salaries,” he said, adding: “The Prime Minister continues with the theory of 7%. This is not growth. University salaries have not even had indexation. We tell him to collect all these at once because he has also kept the interests because he has not even indexed inflation. So there is room for the government to add 20-30 million euros for the University,” Kovaci said. /Argumentum.al
