Since December 2019, the project Strengthening Democratic Citizenship Education in Albania has been supporting the Ministry of Education, Sports and Youth to improve the quality of democratic citizenship education in Albania through Council of Europe standards and practices.

To address some of the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project has prepared, adapted and translated into Albanian a number of Council of Europe publications on ensuring democratic citizenship education in times of crisis. More than 500 hard copies of the Manual for Teachers:  teaching competences for democratic culture online, 500 copies of Digital Citizenship Handbook and 1800 copies of Digital Lesson Plans were distributed to the Albanian education community. The Manual provides teachers and parents with concrete ideas and examples of activities to develop competences for democratic culture online. The Lesson Plans aim to help young learners discuss important issues around the COVID-19 pandemic focusing on staying safe online, adopting responsible civic behaviour, combating on-line hate speech, discrimination and bullying.

From March 2021, the project will start working with competitively selected civil society organisations to develop student led projects on making schools a safe learning environment through online and in-person modes of delivery. Albanian teachers and the wider school community will also have the opportunity to participate in a series of webinars on these topics.

The project is implemented by Council of Europe and funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.