In time, Romanian authorities’
\ninterest in children has been inversely proportional to the level of education.
\nMore precisely, in the past 30 years, every single minister who has been in
\ncharge of education, and there have been many of them, has tried to bring along
\ninnovation. There have been changes for the better, but also lots of measures
\nthat have turned the system upside down, repeatedly, and that has been
\nreflected in the disastrous results obtained by pupils in 6-month or
\nend-of-the-year evaluations and exams. There are many causes: a decreasing
\nnumber of teachers, many of them lacking the necessary skills, bad textbooks,
\nscarce investment in school infrastructure and students who are increasingly
\ninterested in using new technologies rather than reading a book. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The latest study in the field, made
\npublic on Tuesday by the Save the Children organisation, shows that more than
\none quarter of the children in Romania (27.3%) spend more than 6 hours a day
\nonline on weekdays, with the rate going up to 50% at the weekend or during
\nholidays. Children start accessing online information at the age of 9. They use
\nmainly smart phones, as well as other devices. Seven out of ten pupils use the
\ninternet at school, but not for educational purposes. They use it during recess
\nor even, secretly, in class. More often than not, the internet is their
\nexclusive source of information for homework. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Against this background, the current
\neducation minister, Ecaterina Andronescu, wants to turn children’s interest in
\nthe internet into something for their benefit. More precisely, she wants to
\npurchase intelligent blackboards for all classrooms in the country, as well as
\ntablets for secondary and high-school students, as part of an EU-funded project
\nthat would cost an estimated 400 million Euros. Ecaterina Andronescu:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Approaching the internet as an
\neducational resource has multiple implications: first of all, it compels us to
\nreview the school curricula, to bring to school the tools that the teachers need
\nin order to use this resource and that is why, lately, we have tried, together with
\nthe communications ministry, to draw up a project on the basis of which each
\nclassroom would have an intelligent blackboard and teachers would plan their
\nlessons by resorting to online information that would really help the children
\nunderstand the concepts, and not just learn them by heart.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Also, the education ministry has
\ndecided to renounce the single textbook. The decision, published in the
\nOfficial Journal, was made one year after the previous minister, Liviu Pop,
\ndecided that textbooks were to be drawn up and published by the state’s
\npublishing house only. An open tender will be organised, and the best three
\noffers will be awarded a contract for each school subject, based on an
\nassessment conducted by the National Council of Evaluation and Accreditation. Experts
\nwill also be involved, in order to prevent errors from appearing in these textbooks.
\nSo, the focus will first be on quality, and then on price. It remains to be
\nseen whether the measure will bring along better results when it comes to the
\nchildren’s school performance.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Romanian Education Ministry wants to turn childrens interest in the internet into a teaching resource.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":80607,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[28904],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-80606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-education"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n