History of Romanian education

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mainly, the article is concerned about how social aspects influence the behavior of Romanian students and teachers and what are the changes in the education. History Of Romanian education can be grouped in five periods:

  • Education before 1848
  • Education between 1848-1918
  • Education between 1918-1945
  • Education between 1945-1990 (See first 10 years of transformations in Transformations imposed by the Soviet Union in Romanian Education after the WWII
  • Education after 1990

Contents

[edit] Education before 1848

In this period of time, education was dominatly a religious one. Greek or Latin languages were dominant. In Wallachia, the history of higher education started back in the end of 17th century. Constantin Brâncoveanu, ruler of Wallachia, founded the Princely Academy of Saint Sava (Sfantul Sava) in Bucharest in 1694. The instruction was delivered only in Greek. In 1776, Alexandru Ipsilanti, ruler of Wallachia, introduced new courses in Saint Sava Academy. from now courses of French, Italian and Latin started to be taught also.

In Moldova and Bukovina, University of Cernauti (Universitatea Cernăuţi) was founded under Austriac-Hungarian empire.

[edit] Education between 1848-1918

In this period started to be created the modern universities. The first university was founded by Alexandru Ioan Cuza, at Iasi, in 1860. In 1864, Alexandru Ioan Cuza founded University of Bucharest.

In 1786, in Sibiu, Divinity School was created. There were taught graduate courses in theology. The Theological-Pedagogical School was joined, in 1844, by an Academy of Law, founded by the German minority. In 1887 the Academy was disbanded.

[edit] Education between 1918-1945

[edit] Education between 1945-1990

In this period the entire national educational system was sized under the control of Romanian Communist Party, backed by Soviet Union. Education was reviewed by the communist governement as an important tool to control the people's minds. For this reason communists invested important efforts in education. As in almost any socialist country, to be a teacher was one of the best paid jobs. Even though the superiority of the blue-collar class and the equality of rights between workers, peasants, and intellectuals were ideologically promoted, this “equality” was just a buzzword. In fact, to be a teacher was one of the best regarded positions not only among intellectuals but also among the entire society. Compared with Western countries, teaching profession was regarded as more important in communist regimes. They had a better social status than their counterparts from West. This was very easy to understand: education was involved in all communist strategies to control peoples’ minds. In consequence, to be a teacher was very competitive and a student teacher candidate had a difficult time to succeed.

As in all totalitarian regimes, all minorities were only theoretically recognized. Although the Hungarian community was the largest minority in Romania, they lost the possibility of using the Hungarian language in universities. No minority had a university educational curriculum in minorities’ languages after 1956. With respect to high school curricula, the educational process in their languages decreased drastically after 1970. The German minority received the harshest treatment from Red Army, many people being deported to Siberia. The Roma minority was the second in number but not officially recognized during the socialist regime. Even after the fall of the socialist regime, the Roma minority didn’t have a clear status: many of them refused to confirm their origins. A big percentage was poorly literate or illiterate. This produced many difficulties before and after 1989. Almost 80 percent of adults from the Roma community were unemployed (Kocze, 2001). Many of them were indicted criminals; the entire community was associated with delinquency and discriminated against by the entire population. Also, after the WWII, most German and Israel minorities immigrated to their countries.

Equality between genders was also strongly promoted officially. In fact, an analysis of typical ideological speech or day-to-day relation works could reveal easily the aggressive masculinity of language and attitude. Also, because the educational process was overwhelmingly polytechnic, women had few opportunities in higher education. Their orientation was usually oriented through education and economic studies.

If in 1945, only 27% were able to read and write, after 1966 illiteracy was almost eradicated (over 90% literacy). After 1970, completing 10 degrees was universally required. In Romania, because of small differences between each county, the educational structure was mainly uniform.

Academic contests between students were strongly encouraged. In the beginning, it was only a propagandistic goal to camouflage a professional resistance against totalitarian regime. Afterwards, Romania achieved many performances in Olympiads for high– school students. Many teachers imposed a tradition with their results in Olympiads. A lot of students obtained prestigious results in international contests in math, chemistry, and physics. For instance, in math, Romania frequently obtained first place in the world.

Not only was the teacher’s job very well paid, but it also came with many benefits and high social prestige. The standard norm for teaching was four hours per day. Additionally, another four hours per day for checking student papers and preparing new lessons was considered the teaching norm and teachers were paid in accordance with that. Yearly, the periods of vacancy totalized over three months.

The regime severely limited the number of people who were traveling outside. Reciprocally, almost all democratic countries isolated the Romanian regime. Teachers had big difficulties to refresh their curricula, having an incomplete picture of the latest achievements in education, science, economy or art. That induced a profound lack of experience for teachers which was reflected in their curricula and administration of schools.


[edit] Education after 1990

In all Eastern European countries, a lot of changes have arisen after the failure of the communist project (Offe, 1997). Because high costly changes were involved, for Romanian society it was very difficult to support them. The educational system underwent a great number of important transformations. Reforms had started fast, connected with the reforms for democracy since 1990. A great number of radical changes occurred after this year. Unfortunately, the quality of education decreased since the allocated budged diminished. Worst than that, in short time the required changes in education slow down their speed.

In 1989, after the anti-communism movements, totalitarian regimes were cast out from Central and Eastern Europe. In each country, all these aberrant propagandistic structures were scraped in few days. In Romania it was at the end of the year. However, new challenges were raised. Something had to be put in instead of socialist structures. Transformation from a totalitarian society into a democratic one has proved not to be an easy process. It had involved a lot of crisis in all structures of the Romanian society. Firstly, the budget for education was cut severely. Each year, the allocated budged for education was under 4% from GDP.

Teacher salaries were diminished. Now in Romania to be teacher is the worst paid job for postsecondary graduates, under the average salary per economy. In consequence, students are trying now to avoid the job teacher. This had reduced the number of qualified teachers. In big cities, the salary is insufficient for a decent life. That’s why the number of corruption cases in educational institutes has increased. Now the polls estimate that many instances of bribe occurred in education and are representing one of the greatest numbers in society. Despite of the fact that the education is recognized as a national priority, all government who succeeded after 1990 didn’t allocate more than 4 percents.

Democracy is not a theoretical state of mind but a practice that required practices of years if not decades. Although in 1990 polls showed insufficient attitudes towards democracy, after only 6 years the attitudes had changed. After another 6 years Romania have deliberate goals toward the EU, and many projects and exchanges with them. All these influences are reflected in the educational transformations. Now the orientation of Romania educational system is through the UE. Romania started a lot of projects in educations with these countries. Also, education for minorities restarted to be consolidated. A lot of programs and projects have had started for minorities and for modernizing the curricular content. The only isolation Romania has is caused by financial limitations and the economic performances of country. The main countries that Romania has strong exchanges with are: from the EU (especial France and the UK) and the US.

Students received all kind of experiences from “free world”, bad or good. First is violence: often students and teachers become target of violence even inside schools. Another problem is drugs issue. This problem was unknown until 1990. After that, Romania became a target for the drug market. Especially in big cities, many students became drugs addicted and required special treatments. One of the best achievements is reissue of religious education, mainly in primary schools. Romania has more than 86% Christian Orthodox believers. Nowadays, many consider Christian Orthodox Church one of the most trusted institutions in Romania. Other 6% percents it represent believers from Christian Catholic Church and 3 %it represent Protestants and neo Protestants churches. Islamic and Mosaics believers are under 1% and they started also to have their religious education. In Romanian society, the number of people without any belief (without being baptized or have religious marry) is very low, under 0.1%. Despite a shortage of qualified teachers in religion, many priest and students in theology accomplished in a successful way (Cults Ministry, 2002). Their enthusiasm had provided a good assistance to people who were deprived by religious education for decades.

In high schools, the number of vocational students has been reduced. Now the humanistic curriculum is taken more seriously. The government removed all ideological disciplines and independent academic attitudes were trying to instill. Unfortunately, civic education, very fruitful in the Czech Republic and other CEE countries, was not implemented. The old attitudes of un-cooperation still remained. Consequently, the lack of communication is still in our society. People do not receive enough education to improve soft skills abilities, so necessary in today’s job market.

Another problem is brain migration. Many valuable people, both students and professors are emigrating from Romania. Usually they are receiving offers from the US and the EU. Almost all of the best students are trying to obtain a better position, better paid outside. One of the best opportunities it represent the Olympiad performances. Overall, the level of education has dropped. For the first time, it was established the acceptance’ criteria for the private schools in Romania. Actual legislation allows private schools and universities. They are still in an incipient phase. At this moment they are not well evaluated by polls being considered more superficial in preparation of academic background. Also, they often have problems with accreditation (Nicolescu, 2001).

Between 1998 and 2000, the average budget for education was 3.5% of the GDP. Comparing the areas of allocation, the primary and primary schools received the most investments: 52.1%, compared with 22.1% for secondary education and only 9.6% for tertiary education. We can see in that way a small amount in expenses for higher education compared with previous levels. If we compare with Canada, the government used to allocate in 1990 6.5% from GDP, and 5.5% in average between 1998 and 2000. From the areas of allocation, the secondary school received the most investments: 62.2%, compared with 28.6% for tertiary education and only 9.2% for preprimary and primary levels. Compared with Romania, we can infer a commitment to spend more money on secondary and postsecondary educational forms.

Even now, despite financial difficulties, Romanian mathematicians are still gaining top places in world Olympiads. But they had lost some places (usually to China, Russia and the US). It should be remembered that the education in computer science was almost inexistent before (only 4 high-schools in all the country having this profile with a technology and curricula very antiquated). A special IT profile was created to attract the best students from primary (from 5th grade) and high schools. Having a good salary after graduation and possibility to work outside, a lot of people tried to succeed in this new domain. The Olympiads in Informatics bring to Romanians top world positions. In only five years Romanians imposed a tradition, obtaining after many times first place in the world in Informatics Olympiads. Even if IT curriculum requires a lot of money and investments that are far to be enough, the government and people are trying very hard to face up this challenge.

Because of great number of engineers produced before 1990, few students pursued polytechnic studies after. Instead, the number of students in economy, law and computer science has strongly increased. The changes involved in society had brought an increasing demand for higher education. Overall, in les than ten years the number of students increased 2.5 times. Many governmental universities have been created. Also, many private universities appeared. Overall, in 2001 students from private universities were more than 30 percent of total student population. With all of this successfully steps, the higher educational system is still hampered. Now we can say that only the governmental Universities of Bucharest (the Polytechnic and the University) are obtaining international prizes(for instance 4th place in the world at ACM world contest), but their results are far from the results obtained by Romanian high school students.

At this time, Romania is trying to integrate in the European Union. A lot of projects have started between Romania and European countries at all educational levels. Themes are multiple:

  • reforms in education
  • e-learning
  • relations between culture and economy
  • opportunities for minorities
  • gender equity.

There are not only pilot projects. Participating in these exchanges, together with personnel from other Eastern European countries, people are getting more experience. Many people travel extensively in Europe. Fortunately, at this time the integrative actions are not anymore marginal aspects but in our mainstream activities. If globalization is inevitable for all, for Romania it is going through the European Union.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  • Korka M. (2000). Strategy and Action in the Education Reform in Romania, Paideia,Bucharest.
  • Marga, A.(1998). The Reform of Education in 1999, National Agency Socrates, Alternative, Bucharest.
  • Marga, A. (2000). Education in Transition, Phare Universitas Program, Paideia, Bucharest.
  • Ministry of Education and Research, Romania – www.edu.ro
  • Nicolescu, L. (2001). The contribution of the education to the transition towards the market economy: Romanian case. in ed. Kari
  • Novak, C., Jigau M., Brancoveanu R., Iosifescu, S & Badescu M. (1998). White book of education in Romania, Romanian Ministry of Education, Bucharest. OECD, (2000). Reviews of National Policies for Education, Romania.
  • Offe, C. (1997). Varieties of Transition. The Eastern European and East German Experience, Cambridge: MIT Press.