Romanian President: The Romanian school cannot afford the mass-production of unemployed. Education must be radically reformed

Romanian incumbent President Traian Basescu took part on Tuesday at the public debate „The structural reform of the Romanian society. Modernising Romania through education”. On this occasion he declared that „the Romanian school cannot afford the mass-production of unemployed”. He underlined that „the educational system needs a radical reform”. The debate at the Parliament is also attended by PM Emil Boc, Education minister Ecaterina Andronescu leaders of the parties who signed The National Pact for Education and union representatives. Liberal Varujan Vosganian announced that opposition party PNL will not take part in the debates.

The debate aims to start from identifying the problems in Education and line up new procedures or which the PM will claim responsibility. PM Emil Boc had earlier declared that the Executive will assume responsibility for the new Education laws in the beginning of the following month. Opposition party PNL will not take part in the debates, according to liberal Varujan Vosganian.

These are the most important statements made by President Traian Basescu:

despite public debates, it is the first time that the idea laws t modernise the educational system and connect it to the Romanian society dynamic and the European and global realities is unanimously accepted;

I am convinced that we all believe that the country’s modernising and integrating in the EU, completely and effectively, cannot be achieved without a radical system of the educational system;

the talks about the rush in this case are unfounded, because the process started in 2006;

although there is no solid argument indicating that teachers are reluctant to change, the much invoked conservative attitude of the system has the Romanian education regulated by patched up laws, which has suffered over 50 changes, 20 of them only during the last two years;

we need a major change in the Romanian educational system, not facing the past, but the future, not based on a group’s interests, but on defending the students’ right to quality education;

the Romanian school cannot afford anymore to rank among the last in international tops and to massively produce unemployed and diplomas. This happens both in the private and public education departments;

the victims of false diplomas, PhDs and masters are not only those studying in the private sector, but the ones in public education as well.

Elements of the Pact for Education that cannot miss the reforms:

the state has to fund young people’s education wherever quality education is involved, regardless the capital form, public or private, of the education provider;
it is essential for the education and research institutions’ management to not be political;

it is essential that permanent education becomes the base of the Romanian educational system;

I will not hesitate in supporting a profound decentralisation of the Romanian education and the implementation of mechanisms to hold responsible the ones involved in forming tomorrow’s generation;

the absence of performance in Romanian education is the result of a lasting implementation of a logic based on uniformity and excessive centralisation;

decentralised and transparent finance of the pre-university education , based on the results achieved by schools according to the principle that the student attracts finance, will help parents decide if the nearby school is good enough for their children, thus stimulating competition and performance;

evaluating academic staff and awarding incomes according to the students’ progress, considering and the social community they belong to, will make them more responsible for their activity in the classroom;

the unions must accept this competition and tell affiliated members that the most realist solution to increase their incomes is connected with performance and that this is a chance to stop depending on a Government’s will and start depending on their own pedagogic team results;

I believe it’s time to move over the unions’ request making an appeal to egalitarian logic;

we need to ask ourselves if we’re stagnating or we’ve got the courage to make a reform that has been postponed for 20 years. I chose to assume the risk of an important change. I am convince this in the interest of the students, teachers and professors, it in Romania’s interest.