Sorin Cîmpeanu stepped down as education minister, amid plagiarism allegations
The Liberal Sorin Cîmpeanu Thursday night stepped down as education minister, amid plagiarism allegations. The announcement of his resignation however made no reference to academic fraud accusations. "It was an opportunity and an honour for me to start a thorough reform of the national education system. I took over the ministry not because I had too much free time or to add this position to my resume. I came at a very difficult time, with the desire to change things for the better," Cîmpeanu posted on his Facebook page.
The outgoing education minister takes pride in drafting the education laws as part of a presidential programme entitled 'Educated Romania,' and announces he will continue to support them as a professor, university rector and a Senator.
Sorin Cîmpeanu is accused of having plagiarised over 90 pages of a university course textbook from the work of 2 professors with the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine in Bucharest. The journalist Emilia Şercan, specialising in the investigation of academic fraud, wrote that Sorin Cîmpeanu had appropriated 13 chapters published previously under the signature of two other professors. The then-minister dismissed the allegations, claiming that they had been made by people who were trying by all means to hinder the education laws, and whom he described as "wholesome illiterates."
With this resignation, Sorin Cîmpeanu also dodged the uncomfortable motion under which the Opposition was asking him to step down. "Romania educated to cheat. Sorin Cîmpeanu is a disgrace to education" is the tale-telling title of the motion text. The move has now lost all practical significance, but the issue of plagiarism remains a plague among politicians, and seems to grow acute. Cîmpeanu's own party chief, the PM Nicolae Ciucă, is himself suspected of plagiarism. And the lure of academic fraud sweeps the entire political class, irrespective of parties. A former prime minister, the Social Democrat Victor Ponta, was proved to be a plagiarist.
The reform in which Cîmpeanu takes so much pride, but which is criticised in many respects, includes a suspicious measure, to say the least, namely the dismantling of the National Council Attesting Academic Titles, Diplomas and Certificates. The measure is not constructive and does not contribute to a true reform of the education sector, argue the leaders of several universities. They believe the allegations against Sorin Cîmpeanu must be analysed thoroughly, outside any kind of pressure, by the relevant bodies of the university in question and other public institutions.
"The theft will go on, until Romania has implemented in-depth reform, able to return education to where it belongs, next to hard work and honesty," says the MEP Dacian Cioloş, a former technocratic prime minister. He believes Cîmpeanu's resignation to be a failed act, in that it does not explain the resignation, but rather claims only achievements and accomplishments. (AMP)
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