ALBANIANS TAKE TOUR OF AREA COLLEGE; EUROPEANS GATHER IDEAS FOR NATION'S EDUCATION OVERHAUL.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

A contingent from Albania, a nation under Communist rule from World War II through the Cold War, visited College of the Canyons on Friday on a fact-finding effort to overhaul their public schools.

The 13 visitors, among them the mayor of Tirana, the Albanian capital, toured computer labs, the new campus library and the new Fine Arts and Media building during their afternoon swing through the Santa Clarita Valley.

College of the Canyons student Evis Pashaj, 22, a native of Albania and one of COC's 65 foreign students from 17 countries, acted as one of the group's interpreters during members' two-week Southern California visit. Two other translators are Albanian students at Mission College in the San Fernando Valley.

The Albanian delegation included Tirana Mayor Albert Brojka, along with a member of the Albanian Parliament, a school principal, three architects and several representatives of the Albanian Education Development Project.

That organization has embarked on Tirana 2000, a project to reconstruct public schools in the nation's capital. The endeavor will be a public/private partnership, a cooperative effort that is a first for Albania.

The delegation came to the United States to learn new methods of city planning and school planning, in order to create a model school district that can be used in cities throughout Albania.

``Our schools are very old,'' Brojka said. ``We need reconstruction of all schools, and construction of new schools. We want to see how it is done here.''

Children ages 7 to 15 receive free and compulsory education in Albania. During the Communist era, education for teens and young adults often was combined with work in factories, farms or the military. The nation's literacy rate is about 75 percent.

Among the ideas that impressed Brojka about American schools is the support that parents, local businesses and community members give to public education, he said. In Albania, only teachers and students are involved in the school system, he said.

With a population of about 3 million, Albania is a mountainous, forested country bordering the Adriatic Sea. Its history is characterized by the conquests and occupations of nomadic tribes and its European neighbors, including the Romans, Goths, Huns, Slavs, Serbs - and, for nearly 500 years, Turkey's Ottoman Empire.

Albania's era of Communist rule lasted from 1946 through 1992, when the party was defeated in parliamentary elections. The country's allies during the Communist years included China, the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union.

After the fall of communism, Albanians were allowed freedom of religious worship and travel to foreign countries, and the nation resumed diplomatic relations with the United States after a 51-year break.

The delegation's visit to College of the Canyons was an outgrowth of Pashaj's role as one of the group's interpreters, said Bruce Pelkey, director of the campus International Student Program.

``This group is coming here to see what they can do to make changes so Albania can become more westernized,'' he said. ``They're trying to reconstruct their school district in Tirana.''

The trip was paid for by the charitable foundation of billionaire financier George Soros, the New York philanthropist and Hungarian emigre known for giving millions to help Eastern European countries get on their feet since the demise of communism.

The delegation enjoyed some typical tourist pleasures along with the official business. The group's itinerary included visits to Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Great Western Forum and NBC Studios. On Thursday night, they watched the Dodgers beat the Oakland Athletics in an interleague game at Chavez Ravine.

Other stops on their trip included Los Angeles City Hall, UCLA, The Master's College, Santa Clarita City Hall, La Mesa Junior High School, Camarillo City Hall, Pepperdine University, a junior high school in Oxnard and Pasadena City Hall.

One of the organizers of the Albanians' visit was Nora Hughes, a Granada Hills consultant who has worked extensively in that country. The Albanian Education Development Project has built or reconstructed 83 schools throughout Albania, she said.

During the national civil unrest there last spring, none of those schools was damaged.

Tirana 2000, Hughes said, is a $6 million project of curriculum development, teacher training and school construction, a cost divided between the Albanian government and Soros' charitable foundation.

``Right now, one-sixth of the country's people live in Tirana. If we can make a change in (the public schools) of this city, we can create a model that can be repeated in the rest of the country,'' Hughes said.

In a nation with sporadic telephone, water and electrical service, Albanian schools typically lack the basic necessities that are taken for granted in the United States, Hughes said. ``They're 50 or 100 years behind,'' she said.

Although the democratically elected government enacted a series of economic reforms in recent years, Albania remains one of the poorest and least developed countries in Europe.

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Photo: (color) A group from the Eastern European nation of Albania visits College of the Canyons on Friday to check out U.S. educational systems.

John Lazar/Special to the Daily News