Salih Çeka, a national education activist and democratic publicist, known as a Teacher of the People, was born in Filat of Çameria. He completed his education at the Turkish secondary school (idadije) in his hometown and pursued higher studies in pedagogy in Bezanson, France. Çeka worked as a teacher at the “Normal” School in Elbasan in 1913 and served as a general inspector in the Ministry of Education from 1922 to 1923. He was elected a representative of the province of Sulova at the Congress of Lushnja in 1920 and was one of the initiators of the national educational congresses in 1922 and 1924. He directed the “Revistën Pedagogjike” (“Pedagogical Magazine”) from September 1922 to July 1923, where he promoted critical thinking on educational issues and laid the foundational principles for building a national and secular school system in Albania. Çeka actively participated in the efforts of Albanian democrats for the political emancipation of Albanian society as a member of the democratic society “Bashkimi” (“The Union”) from 1922 to 1924, as well as being part of the electoral group “As i pashës, as i beut” (“Neither of the Pasha nor of the Bey”) during the elections for the Constitutional Assembly in 1923. He also published and directed the progressive newspaper “Ku vemi?” (“Where Are We Going?”) from January 12, 1924, to October 19, 1924. After the failure of the June 1924 Democratic Revolution, he was assassinated in 1925. (In the photo: Salih Çeka)
Text: Albanian encyclopedic dictionary – Vol. 1 , Academy of Sciences of Albania, “Kristalina-KH”, Tirana, 2008, page 380.
Photo: © https://sq.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salih_%C3%87eka
Graphic processing: AHCF
