The Minister of Education, Mirela Kumbaro, appeared before the parliamentary education committee to explain why the government decided to merge the Educational Services Center and create an Agency that will be controlled by the Albanian-American Development Fund (AADF).
The minister left nothing unsaid about the current QSHA, which the SP has led since 2012, to portray it as a failed institution, and that salvation would come from the AADF.
"Extraordinary volume of work. QSHA provides a wide range of services. Staff works overtime, technological and logistical capacities are limited. There is high complexity of work. Albanians who studied abroad are returning and there is a volume of work for the unification of diplomas ," said Kumbaro.
She indicated that the idea had not been the ministry's, but surprisingly, the experts that AADF brought in concluded that this directorate should be transferred to the hands of AADF, which controls the board of the new Agency.
"AADF has no profit motive. They brought us British experts from Cambridge. This did not come to us as a ministry, but it came to us after a deep expertise," the minister said.
But she hid the truth.
AADF will invest 5 million euros in 10 years, while QSHA alone currently generates 1 million euros per year.
"The functioning of the Agency will be regulated by a single document ," said Kumbaro, leaving the bitter truths to be revealed in another, non-parliamentary document, such as the Council of Ministers' Decision.
VNA has learned that AADF has agreed with the government not to pay taxes for the services it will provide, and will even have immunity from the audit of the Albanian Supreme Audit Institution, even though it will receive public funding.
So AADF will have all state exams and licenses in hand, including personal data and fee checks.
