By Sebi Alla – With a backpack full of books, the 8-year-old niece of Sanije Brasha wearily steps down from a van that picks her up and drops her off daily from ‘Sabaudin Gabrani’ school near 21 Dhjetori in the Astir area, 3.5 kilometers away, often through chaotic traffic. ‘The school situation for children is very bad; it’s our main problem’, the 63-year-old told Faktoje.al, but she refused to have her photo taken, saying, ‘I don’t want to get involved with politics during this election time’.
Construction works
About 300 meters from where Sanije waits and accompanies her niece, a small excavator is slowly working on preparing the land for the new 9-year school, a location recently visited by Prime Minister Rama, the appointed Mayor of Tirana, Anuela Ristani, and the Minister of Education, Ogerta Manastirliu. Meanwhile, in the other two promised schools, the land is still covered with debris and bushes.
Problem
For many years, the roughly 70,000 residents of these two neighborhoods in the capital have been forced to send their children to public schools in Kombinat, as well as to two other schools, ‘Sabaudin Gabrani’ and ‘Gustav Majer’, located near 21 Dhjetori and the former Park, respectively. This area only has public nurseries, while facilities for kindergartens, preschool education, the lower cycle, 9-year, and secondary schools are missing.
School for election
For the Yzberisht and Astir area, the construction of three new schools, from primary to secondary education, has been promised and planned for eight years. ‘The school we see today is designed according to the modules used for new schools, maximizing space to accommodate as many classrooms and students as possible. It is planned for 900 students in the 9-year cycle, and on the opposite side of the road there will be a kindergarten and nursery for more than 250 children, including 2 nursery classes and 4 kindergarten classes’, explained Anuela Ristani, the appointed Mayor of Tirana, to the Prime Minister.
The Land
Three days after the public presentation, on Wednesday afternoon (April 30), a site visit by Faktoje.al observed several heavy trucks parked and a small excavator working on preparing the western part of the land where the school building is planned to be constructed.
The construction cost amounts to 297,893,376.48 LEK including VAT, with the Municipality of Tirana as the investor. The planned duration for the works is 12 calendar months. Work is ongoing but appears to be progressing slowly, even though the deadline calls for the building to be finished within 12 months.
Recyclable promises
Anuela Ristani, the appointed Mayor of Tirana, besides the school in Astir, brought forward two other educational facilities as ‘models’. ‘We also have the models of two other schools that will continue further in Yzberisht, a high school and a 9-year school with the same capacities; the high school is for 600 students and the 9-year school for 900, and then similarly a nursery and kindergarten within the premises of the 9-year school that will serve the Yzberisht area’, she explained.
Phantom schools
But where is the ‘school that continues’ in Yzberisht? Faktoje.al visited the area designated for the construction of the 9-year and high school in Yzberisht. The site is fenced but filled with garbage, piles of debris, and wild overgrown bushes.
Deadlines
Four years ago, Erion Veliaj, as mayor of Tirana, announced that three schools would definitively solve the issue in the two neighborhoods, Yzberisht and Astir. ‘We will start very soon with 3 schools, 2 on one side of the Lana River, 1 on the other’, Veliaj said in 2021, just days before the parliamentary elections. His latest statement, while under house arrest, was made through his Facebook social media account: ‘I am truly grateful from the bottom of my heart to the residents who showed such patience, and I thank the colleagues who worked to make this promise a reality. I can’t wait to soon see the beginning of work for the construction of the new high school, equally necessary, in this area of Tirana’.
Conclusion
The construction of three schools in the Yzberisht and Astir neighborhoods of Tirana, based also on field inspections, is still considered an unfulfilled promise. Over the past eight years, this has been the main promise, especially during parliamentary and local election campaigns. In the 2021 elections, about 52% of the votes in these areas were for the Socialist Party.
