Falta De Educacion En Rumania Debido A La Caida Del Comunismo

History

The socialist regime took along with it the high standards of education that characterized Romania. The introduction of free-market relations into the states of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe 20 years ago has guided them to a social and cultural decline. This is especially clear in Romania, a country that prior to the introduction of capitalism had already suffered greatly under the rule of the Stalinist dictator Nicolai Ceausescu and the dictates of Western banks and financial institutions. The events in December 1989 were the releaser factor of some reforming and restructuring processes which severely affected the entire resources and needs system in the Romanian economy. The transition from the command economy to the market economy became a necessity for Romania, imposed by the deepening of the socioeconomic crisis between 1980 and 1989.In Romania, the evolution of the transition process led to severe disequilibrium with matching socio-economic costs and the erosion of the standard of living. The rapid and dramatic disengaging of the Romanian education system is a symptom of the decline in all aspects of the country’s social life. Historically Romania’s education system was expanded substantially after the Second World War. Even though Ceausescu was a dictator, he had very strong educational policies and increasingly fought to bring state schools and universities under the control of his party after assuming the power in 1960, and most Romanians had access to good education. (Beyer, A, 1997)

Romania today

With a population of 21.5 million, Romania has more than 500,000 illiterate people, 76 percent of whom come from rural areas. One fifth of Romanian children do not attend kindergarten, one third of high school graduates do not go on to take their graduation exams, and one quarter of pupils are unable to solve basic math problems. This declining standard of education in Romania is reflected in the job prospects of those studying. Official unemployment rates indicate youth unemployment of around 20 percent for the last decade, and this rate has inevitably increased as a result of the economic and financial crisis, which has forced Romania to request huge loans from the International Monetary Fund. At the same time, there is little incentive for those with an education to join the teaching profession. The average wage of a teacher is around €400 per month, and many prefer to find other work or go abroad to find a better job. (Beyer, A, 1997)

The switch from free access to education into privatization of schools became a real problem since the citizens did not count with the economic basis to afford education. According to one report by UNICEF last year, the drop-out rate tripled in Romania in the 2000-2009 period, with 20 percent of children giving up school. The main cause of dropping out is the high cost of keeping a child in school. Although education in the public system is nominally free in Romania, parents must provide about €500 per month to keep each child in school and provide the necessary material for a study year. Given the low level of wages in the country, this sum is beyond the reach of many families. (Berentsen, A.; Menzio, G http://www.iew.uzh.ch/wp/iewwp442.pdf )

This is also reflected by the weak infrastructure and by the poor wages for teachers. The most capable University graduates refuse joining the education system as teachers or academics and prefer working abroad, sometimes as unqualified workers in other fields than that of their formation. This leads us to the second major problem of the education system in Romania: the migration phenomenon. Besides the qualified teachers, there is a significant segment of the Romanian adult population employed as guest workers abroad, which leads to their children being brought up by other relatives, lacking therefore parental guidance. This situation has a decisively bad influence upon children education in Romania. The lack of coherence characterizing the education politics, the frequent changes occurring in the education law and the insufficiency of school projects (on local, national and international level) aggravate the situation. Alternative sources of information as the TV and the Internet are often used without discernment by children, or they even constitute their unique ”educational” program. (Herman, E 1999.)

As we can see the education level is highly lower nowadays. The desire to work abroad increased but, as I mentioned before, an important part of the Romanian emigrants assume jobs for which they are not qualified. Indeed, there are certain fields where the relatively good qualification acquired in Romania is acknowledged abroad. Particularly the medical and social services from Great Britain, France, Spain, Italy and Germany appreciate the presence of the Romanian qualified labor force. As for the adaptability to the cultural and social norms of the host country, it is noteworthy that the Romanian citizens already share the principles of coexistence and the cultural values of the host countries and are flexible enough to adopt the so-called best practices specific to the new social environment, even if they have not been previously familiarized with them. (Samuelson, P.; Nordhaus, W. 2000)

Recently, the education sector was hit by a series of strikes and protests. The longest conflict took place in November 2005, when a general strike lasted for three weeks and ended with the government promising to increase teachers’ salaries by about 12 percent. One-day strikes in 2008 and 2009 were followed by an attempt to initiate a new reform of the education system. Eventually, this reform was annulled by the Constitutional Court. In the course of a series of struggles, ordinary trade union members have increasingly come into conflict with the trade union leaderships, which share close links to the political establishment in the country. Key leaders from the trade union bureaucracies have been lured into important official jobs in exchange for party membership. In 2008, the CNSLR-Brotherhood (the National Confederation of Independent Unions of Romania), one of the leading trade union federations in the country, signed a cooperation agreement with the Social Democratic Party, thereby making a mockery of its so-called “independence.” (Schreiber, S.; Wolters, J 2007)

This is not the first time such an agreement has been struck between trade union leaders and political parties, to the disadvantage of the working class. The step from the trade unions into politics is common coin in Romanian political life. In 1999, a law for the decentralization of public institutions was introduced, which means that the administration of school buildings is currently under the remit of local authorities. The municipality owns the buildings and is obliged to maintain school infrastructure.

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