A document circulating among teachers shows a disturbing practice: direct instructions on how they should post on social media to promote the activities of the Ministry of Education.
In the distributed material, teachers are required to include the hashtags #ArtZeje and #MinistriaeArsimit in every post. But not only that. The same document also requires tags to be made to the Ministry of Education and specific names, including Mirela Kumbaro and other heads of institutions.
So, an activity that theoretically should be part of the school or creative life of students, in practice turns into an organized communication campaign on social networks, where teachers are used as amplifiers of the ministry's messages.
This raises some fundamental questions.
Is the role of a teacher to educate and engage with students, or to serve as the administrator of an institutional communication campaign on Facebook and Instagram? And above all: is it acceptable for a public institution to impose the way of communication on social networks on its employees?
The school is not a marketing agency and teachers are not propaganda staff. When the public administration starts dictating hashtags, tags, and the way posts are posted, the line between institutional information and propaganda becomes very thin.
In an education system facing serious problems – from teacher shortages to infrastructure – the system's energy seems to be channeled into something else: image management on social media.
