No Beneficiary Of Romanian Government Special Scholarships Works In Public Sector – Doc

According to an official document, the indifference of local public institutions has made it impossible for young Romanian students who attended the Romanian Government Special Scholarships program to work in the public sector, although this was stipulated in contracts as prerequisite to benefit from the special scholarships. In addition, Romania’s National Agency of Public Servants ANFP requested that students also pursue public management training courses, although Romanian laws regulating the special scholarships program do not even stipulate such training courses.

The document also says that, although 149 beneficiaries have been nominated for this program, none have been hired by the state in the country’s public administration sector.

In an effort to speed up the reformation of the country’s public sector into a modern administration aligned to EU standards, and as part of its commitment to public administration reform, the Romanian Government established in 2004 a state-sponsored scholarship program for civil servants and requested support from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to implement the scholarship program.

The special scholarships program is meant to build tomorrow’s leaders by awarding grants to bright young Romanian nationals to pursue undergraduate, graduate and doctoral studies in a wide variety of fields ranging from public administration, public health policy to business administration at famous international universities.

As prerequisite to benefit from special scholarships ranging from EUR20,000 to EUR30,000 per year for a nearly three-year period of study, Romanian youngsters, aged 18 to 35, were compelled by Romanian authorities to sign contract whereby they committed to return to Romania, upon completing the studies, to work in the country’s public sector for a period of at least three to five years. Non-compliance with this obligation compels students to pay back to the Romanian state the scholarship amount, along with connected interests and penalties.

To select the beneficiaries of special scholarships, the government set up a committee formed of representatives of the academic and non-governmental sectors, the business and banking fields, as well as officials of several international institutions or bodies.