Romanian Presidency Submits Education Strategy For Public Debate

President Traian Basescu assumed responsibility for the document.

 

According to a press release issued by the Romanian Presidency, the head of state decided to assume responsibility for the strategy for the upgrade of education, called Education and Research for the Knowledge Society, drafted by the leader of the presidential commission on the analysis and development of education and research policies, Mircea Miclea.

 

Miclea, former education minister in the government of the democrat and liberal alliance, wrote the document based on propositions received from several participants in the National Pact on Education: three union federations, three political parties and eight associations, which answered the call for participation in the development of the strategy.

 

"The strategy is up for public debate, to be amended and improved," said the Presidency.

 

The Presidency’s website presents the propositions for the development of the strategy, made by some of the participants in the Pact on Education, including the Democrat Liberal Party, the Greater Romania Party and the Democratic Union of Magyars in Romania.

 

The objectives proposed in the strategy are: the ranking of Romanian school children performances in international testing (PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS) among the top ten countries of the world, the placement of at least three Romanian universities among the top 500 universities in the world, the five-fold increase of scientific production and the tripling of the global innovation index, in order to reach the current EU average, bringing the dropout rate blow 5%, which is currently at 23.6%, the removal of essential differences between rural and urban education, between the opportunities “for learning” offered to minority groups and those offered to the majority.

 

Other objectives include turning permanent education into current social practice within each institution, public or private, a 20% increase in the participation rate of adults in permanent education, "turning the education core into a professional elite of the nation,” developing the schools around the needs of the beneficiaries, the allocation of at least 7% of the GDP to education and research and the conditioning of the amount of resources allocated on the results obtained.