Tirana.

There are no reliable prewar statistics on school population. The
1967-68 Albanian official statistical yearbook placed the total 1938/39
school enrollment at 56,283. Other sources placed it at over 60,000.
Soon after the Italian occupation in April 1939 the educational system
came under complete Italian control. The Italian language was made
compulsory in all secondary schools, and fascist ideology and
orientation were inserted into the school curricula. After 1941,
however, when guerrilla bands began to operate against the Italian
forces, the whole educational system was paralyzed. In fact, secondary
schools became centers of resistance and of guerrilla recruitment, and
many teachers and students went to the mountains and became members or
leaders of resistance bands. By September 1943, when Italy capitulated
and German troops occupied the country, education came to a complete
standstill.

Education Under Communist Rule

Immediately upon seizure of power in November 1944, the Communist regime
gave high priority to opening the schools and organizing the whole
educational system along Communist lines. The Communist objectives for
the new school system were to liquidate illiteracy in the country as
soon as possible, to struggle against "bourgeois survivals" in the
country's culture, to transmit to the youth the ideas and principles of
the Party, and to educate the children of all classes of society on the
basis of these principles. The first Communist Constitution (1946) made
it clear that the intention of the regime was to bring all children
under the control of the state. The state, constitutionally, took
special care for the education of youth, and all schools were placed
under state management.

The Educational Reform Law of 1946 provided specifically that
Marxist-Leninist principles would permeate all school texts. This law
also made the struggle against illiteracy a principal goal of the new
school system. A further step in this direction was taken in September
1949, when the government promulgated a law requiring all illiterates
between ages twelve and forty to attend classes in reading and writing.
Courses for illiterate peasants were established by the education
sections of the people's councils. The political organs in the armed
forces provided parallel courses for its illiterate military personnel.

The 1946 education law, in addition to providing for seven-year
obligatory schooling and four-