Teaching Of History, Geography In Minority Languages Eliminated From Romanian Education Bill

The provision also sets that history and geography will be taught in minority languages in accordance with curricula and textbooks identical with those for subjects taught in the Romanian language.

The committee’s report on the education bill was finalized Sunday evening and submitted to the Senate’s Standing Bureau. The report has almost 432 pages of admitted amendments and 624 pages of rejected amendments.

The Constitutional Court recently acknowledged a legal conflict on constitutional grounds between the Government and Parliament over the education bill, which the Executive pulled from the Senate and sought to adopt through a confidence vote.

The court ruling was hailed by the opposition but upset the Hungarian minority party, which has threatened to leave the ruling coalition unless progress is made regarding minorities’ rights. The education bill allows national minorities to take all school subjects, except Romanian language and literature, in their mother tongue.

Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc last week said the Parliament may not stop a current procedure and, if there was a supposed legal conflict on the education bill, it was resolved when the Government set the calendar for the vote of confidence on the bill.