Albania 2024

Key takeaways

The Torino Process monitoring results in 2024 confirms that access to and participation in initial VET remain a strength in Albania. While VET is still perceived by some as less attractive than general education, many young learners enrol and progress successfully through initial VET programmes. Adult participation, however, remains limited. Continuing VET and other lifelong learning opportunities still lack the flexibility and relevance needed to engage older learners effectively, though recent reforms in active labour market programmes are expected to boost participation in the years ahead.

Albania continues to invest in strengthening the quality and relevance of VET learning outcomes. This includes initiatives to align programme content with labour market needs, update curricula, and promote innovation in teaching and training. Notable emphasis is placed on enhancing digital and green competences, which reflects the system’s readiness to address longer-term challenges. Nevertheless, labour market outcomes for youth remain modest, especially outside urban centres, due in part to a mismatch between training and employment opportunities. Adult learners, on the other hand, tend to demonstrate stronger foundational skills, suggesting potential to further develop adult education as a system asset.

Although Albania allocates substantial human and financial resources to its VET system, the effectiveness of these investments varies. The quality of training and learning materials remains a concern, and not all providers are equipped to use available resources effectively. Gaps in data collection and analysis also continue to limit evidence-based decision-making and hinder the dissemination of good practices. Addressing these issues—particularly through improvements in infrastructure, teacher development, and data systems—will be essential to supporting ongoing reforms and strengthening Albania’s role in international peer learning..

Access to learning

Monitoring in the area of access to and participation to learning helps countries assess the extent to which initial VET, continuing VET and other learning opportunities are accessible and attractive to all learners, regardless of their individual backgrounds or reasons for participating. The data also reflects how well learners can expect to progress through and graduate from these learning opportunities.

Opportunities for lifelong learning: access and participation

The Torino Process monitoring results indicate that Albania performs well in ensuring access to and the attractiveness of initial VET programmes. These programmes are accessible to all lower secondary graduates and supported by policies such as scholarships and fee exemptions. However, participation in continuing VET and other adult learning opportunities remains limited, suggesting that available programmes lack the necessary appeal or flexibility to engage adult learners effectively.

To address this gap, Albania has recently reformed and diversified its active labour market programmes, adopting a more individual-centred approach. These reforms aim to provide more relevant, targeted learning pathways for adults, especially those outside the formal education system. While results in this area remain modest for now, these efforts are expected to bring about positive change and may be reflected in improved outcomes in future rounds of Torino Process monitoring.

Although VET in Albania is often viewed as less attractive than other educational pathways, learners who do enrol are generally well supported throughout their studies. System performance in progression and graduation is high, and dropout risk remains low. Learners also benefit from above-average opportunities to continue their studies at higher levels, thanks to relatively strong vertical progression pathways within the education system.

The system also shows some flexibility in accommodating learners who wish to transition between vocational and general education. However, these transitions remain more difficult than progression within a single track, as horizontal permeability between pathways is an area of lower system performance. Greater policy attention to simplifying these transitions could help learners make more informed and adaptive educational choices.

The Torino Process is a regular review of national systems of vocational education and training as well as adult education. It is designed to analyse the ways in which national VET systems (including adult education) address the challenges of human capital development in a lifelong learning perspective. It was established by the European Training Foundation (ETF) in 2010 and has been carried out in partner countries in Southeastern Europe, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean ever since.

Monitoring in the context of the Torino Process describes the extent to which countries deliver on their commitments to learners in support of their learning through life (lifelong learning - LLL) in three major areas of policy and system performance: access to learning, quality of learning, and system organisation.

Quality of learning

Quality and relevance of learning is the area of monitoring that identifies how successfully the VET system provides basic skills and key competences to both young and adult learners. It highlights the relevance of VET programmes to the world of work and how effectively VET graduates transition into the labour market. Additionally, it monitors efforts to promote excellence across key domains, including pedagogy, professional development, programme content, governance, and social inclusion, as well as the openness of the VET system to innovation in response to the evolving needs of learners and labour markets.

Lifelong learning outcomes: quality and relevance, excellence and innovation

In 2024, VET in Albania continues to perform well in supporting learners through progression and graduation. However, despite these educational achievements, employment outcomes remain relatively low for both youth and adults. This challenge is especially visible outside the capital and points to persistent regional disparities. Labour market prospects remain one of the areas where Albania’s VET system performs below the international average, highlighting a need for closer alignment with economic realities.

One contributing factor to these weak outcomes is the quality and relevance of learning for youth, which continues to lag behind that of adult learners. While young learners receive support and opportunities, their outcomes in basic skills and key competences remain lower, which may affect their readiness for employment. Adult learners in Albania, on the other hand, tend to perform better in foundational areas like literacy and ICT, suggesting a potential to build on adult education as a strength.

Albania’s VET remains more responsive to long-term themes like the green and digital transitions than to immediate labour market needs. Still, the country demonstrates a clear commitment to improving the situation. Strategic investments are underway to strengthen teaching quality and introduce innovation through updated curricula and expanded career guidance. Efforts to modernise the VET offer and make learning more relevant are ongoing and well targeted.

While the VET system supports learner progression and graduation effectively, labour market outcomes continue to lag behind. The lower performance of youth compared to adults, and the mismatch between training and employer needs, underscore the importance of stronger links with the world of work. Encouragingly, reforms focused on innovation, lifelong learning, and green and digital skills are underway and hold promise for improving employability in the near future.

System organisation

System organisation is the area of monitoring that captures performance across various domains of management and administration. It examines whether practitioners and leaders have access to data and evidence to support informed decision-making, the level of stakeholder involvement in VET governance, the quality and capacity of staff in leadership positions, and the degree of internationalisation. Additionally, monitoring the allocation of human and financial resources to the VET system helps assess whether these resources effectively support teaching, training, and learning.

System organisation: management and resourcing

Albania continues to perform strongly in the area of VET system organisation and monitoring. These results reflect the country’s sustained efforts to improve the governance and resourcing of the system. VET receives a high level of political and institutional support, which translates into stable allocations of human and financial resources. As a result, there are no acute shortages of staff or funding across the system—an achievement few countries in the region can claim.

However, the quality of training and learning materials remains an area of concern. Despite adequate investment, many providers face challenges in making full use of available resources. Infrastructure improvements, particularly in digital tools and equipment, are ongoing but have yet to address all gaps. These limitations suggest that beyond resourcing, the system must also ensure that materials are fit for purpose and used effectively across all institutions.

Another recurring challenge is the availability of reliable, comparable data to support policy planning and monitoring. Weaknesses in data coverage and analysis make it harder to track the success of reforms or support evidence-based decision-making. While Albania is relatively well-positioned internationally in terms of international cooperation, its capacity to analyse and share good practices remains limited, which may restrict opportunities for peer learning and cross-country collaboration.

Promoting access and participation in opportunities for lifelong learning

Supporting quality and relevance of lifelong learning

Index of system performance

System performance

International comparability of performance results

In addition to presenting information on system performance, the Torino Process monitoring also looks at how internationally comparable a country’s results are, how much they may be affected by bias, and how self-critical a country is when reporting on its own performance. This is made possible by the methodology, which keeps detailed records of the evidence used to produce each country’s results—including where the data come from and how they were gathered. This applies to Albania as well.

Since 2023, the monitoring results for Albana have become more internationally comparable and now surpass the average level of comparability across all countries in the Torino Process sample. However, the results for Albania also remain susceptible to bias within the group of Torino Process countries. Albania also tends to self-assess the performance of its VET system more positively than other countries, on average.