As late as 1946, about 86 % of the people were illiterate, principally because schools using the Albanian language had been practically nonexistent in the nation before it became independent in 1912. Until the mid-nineteenth century, the Ottoman rulers had prohibited use of the Albanian language in schools. Turkish was spoken in the few schools that served the Muslim population. These institutions were located mainly in cities and large towns.

From about 1885 to 1910, several Albanian patriots intent on creating a sense of national consciousness founded elementary schools in a few cities and towns, mostly in the south, but these institutions were closed by the Ottoman authorities. The advent of the Young Turks movement in 1908 motivated the Albanian patriots to intensify their efforts, and in the same year a group of intellectuals met in Monastir to choose an Albanian alphabet. Books written in Albanian before 1908 had used a mixture of alphabets, consisting mostly of combinations of Latin, Greek, and Turkish-Arabic letters.

Illiteracy in Albania, which had long been widespread, was dramatically lowered by the Communists; in 2001 the literacy rate had climbed to 97.5 % of the adult population. Education is compulsory for children between the ages of 4 and 14. In 1996 nearly all school-age children attended primary school, but only 37 % attended secondary school.