Even after the country became independent, schools were scarce. The unsettled political conditions caused by the Balkan wars and World War I hindered the development of a unified educational system. The foreign occupying powers, however, opened some schools in their respective areas of occupation, each using its own language. A few of these schools, especially the Italian and French, continued after the end of World War I and played a significant role in introducing Western educational methods and principles. Of particular importance was the French Lycée in Korce, founded by the French army in 1817. Soon after the establishment of a national government in 1920, which included a Ministry of Education, the foundations were laid for a national educational system. Elementary schools were opened in the cities and some of the larger towns, and the Italian and French schools opened during the war were strengthened. In the meantime, two important American schools were founded--the American Technical School in Tirana, established by the American Junior Red Cross in 1921, and the American Agricultural School in Kavaje, sponsored by the Near East Foundation. An important girls' school was also founded by Kristo Dako, an Albanian-American, whose teaching language was English. The two top leaders of the Country in 1970, Party First Secretary Enver Hoxha and Prime Minister Mehmet Shehu, were educated in these foreign schools; Hoxha graduated from the French Lycée in 1930, and Shehu from the American Technical School in 1932. In the 1920s, the period when the real foundations of the modern Albanian state were laid, education made considerable progress. In 1933 the Albanian Royal Constitution was amended, making the teaching and educating of citizens an exclusive right of the state. Education was thus nationalized, and all foreign-language schools, except the American Agricultural School, were either closed or nationalized. The reason for this move was to stop the rapid spread of schools sponsored directly by the Italian government, especially among the Catholic element in the north. The nationalization of schools was followed in 1934 by a far-reaching reorganization of the whole school system. The new system provided for obligatory elementary education from the ages of four to fourteen; the expansion of secondary schools of various kinds; the establishment of new technical, vocational, and commercial secondary schools; and the acceleration and expansion of teacher training. The obligatory provisions of the 1934 reorganization law, however, were never enforced in the rural areas because of the economic conditions of the peasants who needed their children to work in the fields and because of the lack of schoolhouses, teachers, and means of transportation.