School and Students

Romanian education is still far from what it should be, despite constant efforts by those who have hold the office of education minister in the past years. The current education minister Mircea Dumitru is no exception.

Corina Cristea, 28.11.2016, 14:22

After decades of reform, Romanian education is still waiting for the right algorithm, and the line minister Mircea Dumitru is worried to see that most people in Romania believe that we are still far away from the education system we would all like to see in place, and the prospects of achieving that are quite dim. Minister Dumitru believes that Romanian education does not meet the needs of the labour market, therefore it cannot train students to acquire specific skills. What the Romanian school does is use just one template for all pupils and students and, when drawing up school curricula, it does not take into account the individuals, their skills and the jobs they are interested in pursuing.

Mircea Dumitru believes that the education system should focus more on developing individual creativity: “It is hard to implement tailored education systems, but I believe this should be one of the top missions of those who work in science and education in particular. But we still have hope and we are optimistic that in the not so distant future we will be able to develop such a school system in Romania, one that should train and educate the future educators, so that they can better cater for the needs of each and every pupil and student in the system.”

But are we, this year, closer to the model of school that we would all like to see implemented in the coming future? What kind of education and what kind of schools would we like to have in this country? Which are the prospects for those who graduate from high school? How clear is the model itself to us? Or maybe there should be several models, not just one. These are all questions asked by Education Minister Mircea Dumitru who thus expressed the perception shared by the general public. Pleading for natural pedagogy, which, according to him, “we should live and breathe naturally”, Mircea Dumitru has decided to change certain things.

For instance, he has issued an order which reduces the number of hours children should spend doing homework. The decision was made following complaints coming from many parents unhappy with the large amount of time their children had to spend doing their homework. Each teacher should take into account the fact that children can only take on a certain amount of work, especially at tender ages, because they do not have the psychological or biological capacity to focus on difficult tasks after so many hours already spent in school, the minister also added.