ROMANIA: Education a Pipe Dream for Many Romanian Children

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Marian Chiriac

BUCHAREST, Jun 20 2001 (IPS) - Facing a shortage of financial and human resources, Romania needs to update and improve all aspects of primary and secondary education in order to raise the quality of education and to stop the continuous increase in the number of school drop-outs, according to specialists.

It is estimated that there are over 400,000 children who are now out of the state education system in order to earn a meagre leaving.

“Most of the dropouts quit school because of poverty or because their parents have them help with the chores”, Madlene Serban, general manager of the human resources department of the Education Ministry says.

“The children who drop school live mainly in rural areas, where parents choose to have them help with seasonal work”.

Sometimes the children are prevented from going to school simply because parents haven’t the money for books, pens and pencils, lunches and winter boots.

Dropout rates during the last eleven years has been alarmingly high, with over 30 percent of the pupils aged under 15 quitting school and almost five percent of Romania’s population illiterate, according to official data.

Mihai Gojgarea, 15, is just one of many Romanian young people driven to work by poverty and illiteracy. He spends almost all the year as an unskilled seasonal worker in constructions, being paid the meagre wage of 60 US dollars a month.

“I have to do it as I have to help my mother, who is alone, in taking care of our family”, says Petrisor, who says he wishes he was at school instead of being subjected to the exploitation of his employer.

A decade after the communist regime was overthrown, failed economic reforms and high unemployment have led to crippling poverty – the number of dropouts increasing in line with the growth in impoverished families, whose monthly income do not exceed 100 US dollars.

Despite the fact that in Romania primary and secondary school is free of charge, for many families, especially from rural areas, it becomes almost impossible to pay costs for the children’s education: books, clothes and food.

“This is a very dramatic situation as a child who drops out of school has very little chance to get a well-paid job”, says Liliana Preoteasa, director at Romanian Education Ministry.

“But the school is not only an institution for meeting the needs of the labour market, it is also one of the main factors responsible for accomplishing the total development of a child and an institution of allocating the social values”

Under communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanians were obliged to attend primary school. Since 1989 when communism collapsed, that is no longer the case and statistics show that illiteracy and crime have risen.

In the last ten years, Romania’s successive governments have started some programmes for young people who abandoned compulsory schooling. These have been aimed especially at high risk groups, children of rural areas, urban slums, ethnic minorities and geographically remote communities). But progress has been slow or non-existent.

Constant disruptions in the education system – mainly caused by the need to replace ideological schooling with administrative structures and a curriculum better suited to a democratic country and an emerging economy – has not helped matters.

The education system also has massive backlogs in education facilities and a chronic shortage of suitably qualified teachers. The monthly wage of a teacher is only around 80 US dollar.

Finally, private education at the primary school level is rare and the fees to attend such schools are very high. A scholarship for children from poor families is only four US dollars, a month, which does not cover costs.

In recent years, Romania allocated around four percent from yearly budget for education, less than other countries from western and central Europe.

Given all these shortcomings and limited resources Liliana Preoteasa said, “It will be very hard to cope with the school dropout phenomenonö.

But not everybody here is pessimistic. Sorin Gheorghe, a former dentist turned social worker, four years ago started a project called “Back to School”. As the name implies, the foundation caters to the needs of children excluded from the state system – giving them a chance at education and possible employment.

“We are now offering 85 children an education from grades one through eight. Most of them come from shelters or centres for street children as well as from very poor families””, says Sorin Gheorghe. “Our foundation is providing the teaching materials, classroom furniture and food for the children”.

The students have all been out of the state school system for two years, which makes them ineligible to return. Now they are attending courses in accordance with the official curricula and finally take an exam in a state school.

“I really want to finish my primary studies despite the fact that I am working full time in order to take care of my family”, says Ionut Maier. He is 18 years-old and he is in the seventh grade. “I did not the chance to graduate in proper time as life was not very friendly to mine”, he remarked on his present situation.